News

Retail Orphan Initiative celebrates 5-year anniversary

November 5, 2013

The Retail Orphan Initiative has announced that it is celebrating its fifth anniversary. Inspired by the late Paul Singer, former SVP and CIO for SuperValu and Target Corp. and a champion of adoption initiatives, RetailROI brings together retailers, analysts, technology vendors and many others to raise awareness and help provide real solutions for orphaned and at-risk children around the globe.  

Since its founding five years ago, the Retail Orphan Initiative has helped more than 110,000 orphaned and vulnerable children through education, computers, food and medical care. More than 94 percent of the funds have been used in direct support of charities that provide hands-on relief around the world for orphan care, adoption relief, foster care support, and rescue of children from human trafficking. Among 69 projects undertaken so far, the Retail Orphan Initiative has: 

• helped expand Safe Families from 12 to 65 cities in the United States, three in Canada as well as the U.K., providing support and hope to families in crisis;
• helped 4KIDS grow projects from four to 32 states, with training and support for foster families;
• rescued more than 350 girls from human trafficking in Nepal and India;
• impacted nearly 2,900 adoptive families in the United States with funds and education;
• built schools in Liberia, with a new school in Haiti currently under construction;
• built computer labs (nine so far) in Liberia, Honduras, Ethiopia, Zambia and the Dominican Republic; 
• funded clean water projects in Haiti, Liberia, Uganda, and Ethiopia;
• funded children's homes in Cambodia, Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Honduras; and
• provided more than 1.3 million meals in famine/relief areas and for orphans, through RetailROI and partners.

These initiatives align with RetailROI's strong commitment to bring awareness to the enormous needs of orphans and vulnerable children worldwide. RetailROI encourages retailers, vendors, manufacturers and analysts to create programs internally for their companies to become mentors for local foster children, provide non-paid leave for employees who adopt or become foster parents, and establish grant programs for employees who hope to participate in the orphan adoption process.  

"In just five short years RetailROI has impacted the lives of thousands of orphans and economically disadvantaged children in the United States and around the world," said Randy Cucerzan, senior director of IT/enterprise services at Genesco. "RetailROI was founded to bring awareness to the plight of 142 million plus orphans by using the resources of the retail community and retail technology leaders to help break the cycle of poverty for these children.

"Through donations and services, volunteers have helped schools by offering their skills, business acumen and advice, as well as through donations of goods and supplies. I am proud to have been a part of RetailROI these past five years and have received back much more from participating than I have ever given. I'm looking forward to RetailROI's next five years of helping to make the world a better place for these children." 

"My involvement in Retail ROI has been life changing, both professionally and personally," said Jeff Roster, research VP at Gartner. "I've had a chance to work with the brightest minds in retail working to help some of the most desperate and vulnerable people on the planet. I've been fortunate to see my two teenagers thrive in a Honduran jungle while distributing aid. There are literally no words that adequately describe what this organization has meant to the Roster clan. Congratulations to the retail industry for embracing this cause, and as we are fond of saying, 'We are just getting started!'" 

RetailROI's signature fundraising event each year is the SuperSaturday research event in New York, held one day before the opening of the National Retail Federation's annual Convention and Expo, the National Retail Federation's dedicated event to help gather proceeds for RetailROI. The fast-paced SuperSaturday event at the PwC auditorium is designed to provide attendees with an in-depth look at the latest data and trends in the retail industry before they hit the show floor at NRF. Top analysts and C-level executives come together for this IT conference the Saturday before NRF to converge on retail trends in marketing, technology, mobile and social media, with all proceeds from vendor sponsorships donated directly to RetailROI.