Ooze Wholesale ramped up their charitable efforts to give back to the Detroit community this past holiday season. The company donated the proceeds from all pink products to the Shades of Pink Foundation, and hosted a food drive to assist over 200 families for Thanksgiving.
“We have experienced tremendous success this year,” said Ooze Wholesale Chief Financial Officer Vince Ayar. “It’s essential to our business to give back to the community that has given us so much.”
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and with pink being the designated breast cancer color, Ooze put aside 100 percent of the money made from every pink item sold in October on Oozelife.com. This amounted to over $4,800, to be donated to the Shades of Pink Foundation. This money directly benefits Metro Detroit families.
“Shades of Pink provides financial support by assisting with utility bills, rent and mortgage payments, COBRA payments, day care fees, transportation costs and other bills,” said Shades of Pink Executive Director Karla Sherry. “By paying bills directly, thus relieving patients of that burden, we are giving them the opportunity to move forward with cancer treatments.”
Moving into November, Ooze turned their focus to giving back to the broader Metro Detroit community with an “Oozegiving” food drive. Ooze partnered with the Shelby Jane Seyburn Foundation and 18 local dispensaries to collect canned and non-perishable food items. Each participating dispensary had a box for donations and issue done raffle tickets for food items, with a large prize including a TV to be given away at the end.
On Monday, Nov. 25, Ooze hosted a Turkey Drive event in Detroit for 200 families. 200 turkeys, pies and the nearly 2,500 collected food items were donated to families in need.
“We are all Detroit natives, and recognize the work that still needs to be done here for our entire community to thrive,” said Ayar. “The holiday season should be a celebrated time. We want to ease the financial burden that eliminates the joy from this season for many Detroiters.”
By establishing the Ooze Foundation, we plan to host even more events like this for our community. Having an in-house Foundation will make the planning and execution of these events much more streamlined, and having a designated team to run this entity will allow us work with more groups in need, and better address the needs to the Metro Detroit community.
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The Ooze Foundation turned our Oozemas holiday toy drive into a drive-thru event this year. 800 toys were given away to underpriviledged Detroit kids ages 0 all the way up to 18.
Putting Thanksgiving Dinner on the Table for 250 Detroit Families
The second annual Oozegiving Thanksgiving food drive was a success! We increased our meal total from 200 to 250, providing a turkey, bag full of side dishes, and a pie for families who may have otherwise gone without.
Making a Difference for 15 Breast Cancer Patients
For the third year, the Ooze Foundation has collected funds from pink Ooze products sold in October to benefit the Shades of Pink Foundation. We are thrilled to be able to donate almost $10,000 more than last year, which will benefit 15 local patients and their families.