CORPORATE PARTNER OF THE YEAR: The GIANT Company

This award celebrates corporate partners that have demonstrated exceptional commitment in promotion and support of Penn State, excellent track records of philanthropy and research, and active engagement of students and alumni in the workplace and the classroom.

THE GIANT COMPANY

For more than forty years, The GIANT Company has partnered with Penn State to support the well-being of families across Pennsylvania and beyond. The supermarket retailer—which employs more than 35,000 team members at hundreds of locations in the Commonwealth, as well as in Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia—has directed most of its support to Penn State Health Children’s Hospital and the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, demonstrating a strong commitment to pioneering new research discoveries, advancing patient care, and supporting frontline healthcare workers. The GIANT Company is the top corporate donor to Children’s Miracle Network (CMN), with twenty-five years of support that has included sponsoring the annual CMN telethon and other fundraising events and running in-store campaigns offering customers various ways to support CMN at the checkout register. In 2020, the company committed $1 million to CMN to fund a community car seat safety program in which Penn State Health Children’s Hospital community health educators conduct safety checks and provide new seats when needed; to underwrite a K-12 wellness initiative that assesses schools’ nutrition programs and provides tailored resources for improvement; and to support the three-floor expansion of Penn State Health Children’s Hospital. In conjunction with its 95th anniversary in 2018, The GIANT Company funded a 3D heart model printing program for pediatric patients with congenital heart disease. And during the onset of COVID-19, The GIANT Company responded to the challenge of the pandemic with a gift of $50,000 to the Penn State Health COVID-19 Assistance Fund; they also donated PPE to the hospital and more than $22,000 of in-kind gifts of product and flowers to our frontline workers in honor of National Nurses Week and National Hospitals Week. All of this affirms The GIANT Company’s dedication to connecting families for a better future. We are proud to recognize their tremendous generosity and look forward to this remarkable partnership developing further in the years to come.