Target 2005 Annual Report Download - page 16

14
Corporate Responsibility
For decades, Target has strived to manage our business with
integrity and to favorably impact the communities where we
operate. We believe our efforts — which encompass a broad
spectrum of initiatives—strengthen the markets we serve and
enhance the long-term health of our company.
For example, we contribute more than $2 million each week
to programs that benefit education, the arts, social services and
other vital community partnerships. In 2005, a few of the
programs Target championed were:
• Ready. Sit. Read!, which reinforces the importance of reading
as a foundation for lifelong learning. The program includes
a book club with monthly recommendations, book festivals,
and celebrity authors who help raise awareness of the merit
of early childhood reading.
• United Through Reading, a program of the Family Literacy
Foundation that connects deployed military parents and their
children back home through reading. Target’s support has
allowed this program to expand to all branches of the military.
• Free access to major cultural institutions across the country
every day of the week, including Target Free First Mondays
at Chicago Children’s Museum, Target Free Tuesdays at the
Asian Art Museum in San Francisco and Target Free Friday
nights at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
• Target & Blue and Safe City, both of which involve alliances
between Target and local law enforcement agencies to
reduce crime and create safer communities.
In addition, Target continues to support our signature projects
including:
• Take Charge of Education, a school fundraising initiative
which began in 1997 and has contributed about $169 million
to schools across the country since its inception,
• Start Something, a partnership between Target and the Tiger
Woods Foundation, designed to promote character devel-
opment opportunities for children ages 8 to 17 which has
attracted more than three million participants nationwide, and
• Target House, which provides a home-away-from-home for
families of children undergoing treatment at St. Jude Children’s
Research Hospital.
Ready. Sit. Read!
Target partnered with children’s
illustrator, J.Otto Seibold, to
create characters and stories that
model positive reading behaviors
and encourage adults to foster
a love of reading early in children’s
lives. The program provides
monthly book recommendations,
activities and resources to help
children get excited about
reading on an on-going basis.
diverse.
enduring.
refined.
simple.
purposeful.
original.
everyone.
everywhere.
Target.