Community
Working alongside community partners, we create solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges and build long-term programs that have a lasting, positive impact. We work to address immediate needs, such as reducing hunger and homelessness, providing affordable housing, and serving communities in need following natural disasters. We also look to the future, by providing programs that support STEM education and skills training.
We help address urgent issues faced by children and families from underserved communities by improving access to food and basic necessities.
We leverage our logistics network to support food banks and community organizations, delivering groceries and prepackaged meals directly to vulnerable families.
We also work to eliminate barriers to learning by providing students with clothing, hygiene products, and other supplies that help them focus on their studies. We donate to nonprofits supporting school districts in Washington state’s Puget Sound region, Northern Virginia, and Nashville, Tennessee.
We believe that all people should have access to housing they can afford.
In January 2021, Amazon launched the Amazon Housing Equity Fund, a commitment of over $2 billion to preserve and create more than 20,000 affordable homes in three communities where we have a high concentration of employees: Washington state’s Puget Sound region; Washington, D.C., and Arlington, Virginia; and Nashville, Tennessee.
In collaboration with local nonprofits, AWS also launched community development initiatives in villages adjoining AWS infrastructure sites in West Java, Indonesia, and Telangana, India. Initiatives include renovation of schools, provision of clean water facilities, toilets, waste management systems, hyperlocal environmental initiatives, and skill development programs for local youth.
Amazon’s disaster relief and response efforts leverage our innovative technologies and global logistics network to provide fast and effective aid for communities impacted by natural disasters.
We have filled cargo jets and shipped truckloads of Amazon-donated items to communities across the globe. We also enable customers to donate products and cash on Amazon.com and we help disaster response organizations expedite their response efforts at scale through AWS. We offer support through cloud computing technology, technical expertise, and volunteer time to help communities at every stage of a disaster lifecycle.
It can take multiple days to respond to a natural disaster and assess, procure, consolidate, and pack supplies. To accelerate this process, Amazon analyzed data across four years of support to prepare ahead of hurricane season in the U.S. and Caribbean.
We donated and pre-stocked over 500,000 relief supplies in our hub. This preparation ensured readiness for helping six of Amazon’s humanitarian relief partners, and the hub was instrumental in providing support to Louisiana communities following Hurricane Ida.
Amazon believes in the power of education to unlock human potential, which is why we invest in a range of subjects and tools to help children, higher education students, and adults tap into their potential.
In 2020, we pledged to help 29 million people around the world grow their technical skills with free cloud computing skills training by 2025. Our programs to support this commitment include Amazon Future Engineer, AWS Training and Certification, AWS re/Start, AWS Academy, AWS Educate, AWS Think Big Space, our partnership with Girls in Tech, and AWS GetIT.
Amazon Future Engineer is our global childhood-to-career computer science program, created to inspire and educate thousands of students each year from underserved and underrepresented communities. As part of this program, students explore computer science by meeting actual Amazon employees in virtual live career talks or explorations of our real-world innovations.
We support local food producers through Whole Foods Market.
In addition to featuring local products in our stores, we’re providing loans to small, local, independent farmers and artisanal food producers to help them expand their businesses through the Whole Foods Local Producer Loan Program.
To make an impact in our communities, Whole Foods Market has three foundations to support strategic programs that make an impact across the globe:
Purchasing Sourced for Good products directly contributes to causes that Whole Foods Market and our customers champion, including fair wages, ethical trade, and improved health care access.
