Every day at Amazon, we work to surprise and delight our customers. It’s become a tradition at Amazon during the holidays to surprise and delight nonprofit organizations in our communities by fulfilling their Amazon Wish Lists.
This year’s holiday surprises began in Seattle with our neighbors at Mary's Place – a wonderful organization that provides housing for homeless women and families. We began working closely with Mary’s Place last year when we donated a building on our campus to be used as one of their shelters. Over 200 parents, children and pets have stayed at the Mary’s Place site on our campus since April. Last week, we surprised Mary’s Place residents when Santa Claus and his elves delivered over $10,000 in gifts from the Mary’s Place Wish List. We delivered gifts ranging from remote control cars, to Kindle e-readers, to baby carriers. Later that same evening, our Treasure Truck made a special stop at Mary’s Place and delivered tickets for an exclusive screening of two Amazon Studios shows at the nearby Cinerama Theater.
“It’s the most incredible gift we’ve been given – to have neighbors that care about us,” said Marty Hartman, the Executive Director of Mary’s Place. “Christmas miracles do come true.”
In Washington, D.C., our local team of Amazonians visited several nonprofits to deliver thousands of dollars in gifts from their Amazon Wish Lists. At one D.C. nonprofit, Free Minds Book Club, we donated $10,000 worth of books to help further their mission of empowering young inmates to turn their lives around by improving their reading and writing skills.
In addition to delivering holiday surprises around our corporate offices, we also surprised nonprofit organizations in the communities where we operate fulfillment centers. Santa and his sleigh—in this case a 53-foot Amazon trailer—have been making special deliveries across the U.S., from Sumner, Washington, where we helped local firefighters give thousands of dollars’ worth of winter coats to local children, to Edgemont Elementary School in Moreno Valley, California, where we donated over $15,000 in school supplies and AV equipment to 750 students, to the Boys & Girls Club of America in Middletown, Delaware, where we donated over $15,000 worth of Amazon Fire tablets. We are proud our donations supported hundreds of children and families.
Across Europe we also donated to charity organizations in regions where we have corporate offices and fulfillment centers. In Poland and France, for example, we donated thousands of books and Kindle e-readers to local schools, and in Germany, we are providing meals to those in need on Christmas Eve.
Back in Seattle, on Tuesday we wrapped this year’s Holiday Giving campaign at Seattle Children's where we gave a special gift to each patient staying at the hospital. Gio Caro, a 6-year-old Seattle Children’s patient and resident of the Mary’s Place Guest Rooms, was an awesome elf, and helped spread lots of holiday cheer as he handed out many of these gifts to his fellow patients. We also fulfilled the Amazon Wish Lists of several Make-A-Wish families staying at Seattle Children’s.
These surprise gifts came in Amazon boxes of all sizes. But as Dr. Ben Danielson from Odessa Brown Children's Clinic said, “It isn’t so much about what’s in the boxes – it’s about people taking a moment to recognize and acknowledge each other.”
Thank you to the hundreds of Amazon employees who helped spread this holiday cheer. These are incredible organizations that we’re lucky to have in our communities around the world, and we’re proud to support them.
To learn more about the organizations we supported this holiday season or to support them yourself, see list below:
Mary's Place, Seattle WA
Rainier Scholars, Seattle, WA
Seattle Children's, Seattle, WA
Odessa Brown Children's Clinic, Seattle, WA
Treehouse, Seattle, WA
Wellspring Family Services, Seattle, WA
Pike Market Childcare and Preschool, Seattle, WA
Team Read, Seattle, WA
Atlantic Street Center, Seattle, WA
Northwest Literacy Foundation, Seattle, WA
JazzED, Seattle, WA
Make-A-Wish, Seattle, WA
Free Minds Book Club, Washington, D.C.
Tyler Elementary School, Washington, D.C.
Central Union Mission, Washington, D.C.
Fair Chance, Washington, D.C.
Firefighters Coats for Kids, Sumner, WA
Home Plate for the Holidays, Goodyear, AZ
Edgemont Elementary SchoolMoreno Valley, CA
Angels' Closet, Redlands, CA
Next Move, Sacramento, CA
Center for Human Services, Modesto, CA
Santa Claus Inc., San Bernardino, CA
Children's Fund, San Bernardino, CA
Big Brothers Big Sisters, Las Vegas, NV
Children's Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Peyton Manning Children's Hospital at St. Vincent's, Indianapolis, IN
Fisher House, Boston, MA
United Way, Fall River, MA
Winterfest, Hartford, CT
Puerto Rican Association for Human Development, Perth Amboy, NY
Toys for Tots, Baltimore, MD
