Costco’s COVID-19 Impact for the Detroit Market

At Beaumont Royal Oak hospital, we have two Costco named pantries on our pediatric floor. Each of our 10 buildings is assigned a month and they graciously bring snacks to the hospital for those pantries.

Because donations are no longer allowed, I contacted our Madison Heights, MI building (#393) to see if they would be willing to donate granola bars to our doctors and nurses instead of their regular pantry donation.

Their front end manager Bridget Cannon (in case you want to give a shout out!) took the request and ran with it, and within 45 minutes we had 5 other buildings on board to donate a variety of snacks…ready for pick-up the next day!

The donations from each building ranged from $100-$500 ($2200 total) and we were given every individually wrapped snack and beverage you can think of!

While the dollar amount doesn’t sound like a lot, when you break down the items themselves, it’s quite remarkable. In total Costco donated almost 12,000 snacks to our doctors and nurses! Keep in mind that no outside food is allowed at the hospital right now and our clinicians are working around the clock. There is a very real possibility that these snacks are their only chance to grab something to eat during their 24, 48+ hour shifts.

With the constant financial challenges of managing the virus, getting supplies, etc. there is no way Beaumont Health would have had the budget (or the time frankly) to purchase 12,000 snacks

Also, our Green Oak Township, MI building (#786) came up with another great donation idea. Because their marketers cannot be outside the building at membership events, their membership marketing manager was sitting on a monthly budget that wasn’t being used. He took a portion of those funds ($375) and purchased 75 canisters of Clorox Wipes and 18 boxes of gloves and donated them to our efforts. With possibly more to come!