Walmart 1997 Annual Report Download - page 11

“Phenomenal” is a word Jeff
Wennberg uses a lot — especially
when he’s talking about Wal-Mart.
Wennberg is the mayor of
Rutland, VT, where a Wal-Mart
store that opened this January
is the linchpin of an eight-year
downtown revitalization project.
“Wal-Mart has been better
than expected for us, and we
had extraordinarily high
expectations,” Wennberg said.
Rutland, population 18,000,
is the second-largest city in
Vermont. Because its business
district serves a sizable
surrounding region, downtown
Rutland is “about what you’d
expect for a city of 60,000,”
Wennberg said.
Or anyway, it is now — thanks
to the redevelopment project
and Wal-Mart.
“Eight years ago, downtown
Rutland was perceived as being
in a serious decline,” Wennberg
said. “There’d been no significant
private-sector investment in quite
some time. Downtown was
suffering a slow death.”
Rutland’s central business
district, built around 20 acres
of railroad yards, was focused
on an aging, 1960s-vintage
strip center.
Then began years of planning
to revitalize the city’s core.
When
the Wal-Mart lease was
announced
as the anchor of
the project, the Rutland Daily
Herald wrote in an April
1996 editorial:
There is a feel of life on the streets
of downtown Rutland that is
new. It is the result of
all these developments. It is
the payoff for years of work
by numerous people in the
community who have refused to
give in to drift and defeatism.
With the new Wal-Mart, of
course, Rutland added 140 new
jobs
and learned the Wal-Mart
way of doing business.
“Their philanthropy is
legendary, not to mention their
involvement in the community,”
Wennberg said. “What Wal-Mart
represents is economic prosper-
ity and growth in our central
business district, because they
are such a phenomenal draw.
The Wal-Mart opening is the
jewel in our crown.”
9
GOOD NEIGHBORS
Wal-Mart helps set downtown on the right track
‘ THE JEW EL IN OUR CROW N ’
Rebirth in Rutland: From left to right, Mayor Jeff Wennberg and Wal-Mart
associates Chet Landon, Gail Scribner and Brenda Heath proudly show off
a revitalized downtown.
Associa te s Help
M a k e M i ra cle s
Wa l-M a r t Sponsors
Children’s M ira cle N etw ork
Taylor Dippery is no ordinary
Wal-Mart associate. At Store
#1607 in Lewistown, PA, the
associates consider little Taylor
their special miracle.
At 18 months of age, Taylor
learned to walk at Wal-Mart.
Using her special walker, she
now scoots all over the store
with her grandfather, wearing
her honorary associate’s name
tag and giving smiles and greet-
ings to everyone she passes.
It was a hospital in the
Children’s Miracle Network
(CMN) that made it possible
for Taylor to get around, and
Store #1607 did its part to help.
Last year, that store’s associates
raised $20,500 for their local
CMN hospital, and helped
hundreds of children like Taylor.
Wal-Mart associates have
raised more than $71 million for
CMN since Wal-Mart became
official retail sponsor in 1988.
In calendar 1996, Wal-Mart
donated $14.3 million, or 10 per-
cent, of the $143 million raised
in the entire CMN campaign.
“Associate” Taylor Dippery