Our Journey to Healthy Futures

A Message from Our Leadership

The past two years have showed us that some burdens are too big to carry alone. We can make positive change, build healthier and more equitable communities and uplift our neighborhoods, but we have to work together.

The Rite Aid Foundation, the public charity launched by the company more than 20 years ago, has spent nearly two years refining its programs, strategies and direction to address the intersection point of racial discrimination and health disparities.

Now, the charity has a new identity to match its mission. Moving forward, The Rite Aid Foundation will be known as Rite Aid Healthy Futures, complete with a refreshed brand representing its caring, optimistic, wholehearted and intentional pursuit of progress.

Yet, this moment is about more than a new name, logo and tagline. At our essence, Rite Aid Healthy Futures will be a public charity dedicated to driving positive change in underserved communities, communities that many of our stores serve and many more of our associates call home.

Racial inequities and health disparities across big cities and small towns profoundly affect the lives and futures of tens of millions of Americans every day. The seismic societal fault lines running perilously through our neighborhoods – based on race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, educational attainment and other factors – pervade virtually every domain of society.

When nearly one-third of residents live in poverty in cities such as Buffalo, Cleveland and Detroit, with a majority minority composition, or more than four-fifths of fourth-grade Black students in the U.S. are not proficient or better in reading, or when Hispanic females are nearly twice as likely to have diabetes as non-Hispanic white females, alarm bells should reverberate from coast to coast.

Still, statistics mask the humanity of it all. These are not just data points. Real lives and real futures are at stake. Life expectancy, the ultimate indicator of health and wellness, span 20-30 year differences in nearby sections of the same city today depending on race and ethnicity.

To be clear, we cannot achieve racial equity if we do not also achieve health equity for all Americans. That will take all of us, Rite Aid associates working together hand-in-hand with the charity’s donors, community partners and neighbors.

We will help lift up local neighborhoods through caring actions and investments that make a real difference in people’s lives. And we’ll do it in ways that respect the intrinsic values of the neighborhoods the charity serves.

We'll take intentional action through three signature programs: Empowering Children, Connecting Communities and Strengthening Cities. Created with input from community nonprofits, expert voices and neighborhood leaders, these grant programs will focus on quality education, good health, food access, stable housing and income opportunities. In short, the things our neighbors need to have whole health for life.

This journey includes all of us. Our new logo captures the human spark that serves as a catalyst of positive change. You all have that within you.

As Rite Aid Healthy Futures evolves and grows, we will provide opportunities for Rite Aid customers, associates and business partners to support your communities and social causes. You’ll connect with the people in the places you call home and become the inspired everyday philanthropists the world needs.

Together, we can all carry a little bit of the weight of the world. Together, we can uplift our neighborhoods.

Thank you,

Jessica Kazmaier
Board President, Rite Aid Healthy Futures

Matt DeCamara
Executive Director, Rite Aid Healthy Futures