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Malls hold fund-raisers; ICSC gives $1M to Red Cross

By Donna Mitchell

Top to bottom: Fashion Centre at Pentagon City, Arlington, Va.; ICSC President and CEO Michael Kercheval and Denise Cubbedge, regional development manager, American Red Cross; Bradley Square, Cleveland, Tenn.; Boulder (Colo.) Crossroads Mall.

The Sept. 11th attack on America galvanized the retail development industry into action, precipitating shopping center-hosted blood drives and vigils, a $1 million cash donation from ICSC to the American Red Cross and numerous other responses.

“These dollars come from 44 years of scrimping and saving for a rainy day,” said Michael Kercheval, ICSC’s president and CEO, handing over a check to the American Red Cross at the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware Idea Exchange, nine days after the atrocities. “Well, I can’t possibly imagine a better time, nor a greater need, to show how much we as an industry care.”

Many ICSC members affirmed that sentiment, sending hundreds of e-mails and messages to the organization in the days that followed, expressing support for the donation. ICSC also partnered with the Red Cross to organize collections in centers across North America.

With the World Trade Center destroyed, and the Pentagon heavily damaged, the industry responded much the same way it has for natural disasters, such as Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and Hurricane Georges in 1998, collecting money and supplies, and turning shopping centers into community gathering places.

Shopping centers hosted blood drives and raised funds for the rescue and recovery operations, the two resources that the American Red Cross said it needed the most. They also collected money and supplies for the United Way of America and the Salvation Army. They rose to the occasion while at the same time suffering plummeting sales and traffic (see story, REITs weigh effects of attacks).

United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania, hit close to home for Crown American Realty. Based in Johnstown, Pa. — about 20 miles from the crash site — the REIT had all 26 of its centers participate in relief efforts. Two of its Pennsylvania centers, Viewmont Mall, in Scranton and Wyoming Valley Mall, in Wilkes-Barre, were part of a four-mall project organized to collect dry goods, bottled water, blankets, T-shirts and other essentials. At Patrick Henry Mall, Newport News, Va., the community was invited to express its sentiments by posting messages, photos and mementos on a 25-foot wall inside the mall. And on the Friday after the attacks, several Crown American malls held candlelight vigils, including Crossroads Mall, Beckley, W.Va.; Lycoming Mall, Williamsport, Pa.; and Bradley Square, Cleveland, Tenn.

Simon Property Group’s Fashion Centre at Pentagon City, Arlington, Va., which sits just half a mile from the Pentagon itself, became actively involved in relief efforts. Besides holding a fund-raiser that pulled in more than $100,000, its restaurants provided meals for rescue workers, and displaced Pentagon workers were allowed to park in its parking lot, said Leslie Maxam, the marketing director there.

The mall also was the starting point for a “Unity Walk” to a memorial site near the Pentagon, with participants donating money to relief organizations. Clear Channel Communications, a radio broadcasting company, coordinated the event, saying it raised $30,000 for relief organizations working in New York City; Washington, D.C.; and Pennsylvania. Money raised by Fashion Centre also went to local charitable organizations benefiting families of the attack victims.

Through collections at its 180 malls nationwide, Simon raised about $4 million in the first weekend alone following the attacks, according to Billie Scott, director of public relations for Simon. Money went to the Salvation Army, the United Way and the American Red Cross. In Pennsylvania, Simon’s Ross Park Mall in Pittsburgh worked with the local NBC affiliate station and Salvation Army to round up donations of bottled water. Orange Park Mall in Florida used its parking lot to stage a blood drive by the Florida/Georgia Blood Alliance.

A Red Cross fund-raiser at Ala Moana Center, Honolulu.

Glimcher Realty Trust, Columbus, Ohio, established its Jersey Gardens Mall, Elizabeth, N.J., as a drop-off center for emergency crew work supplies. The mall gathered heavy work gloves, socks, protein bars, bottled water and snacks for rescue workers at the nearby World Trade Center site. All of the city’s emergency transport vehicles that bring supplies to New York City were stationed at the mall, and the Red Cross hosted a blood drive there on the Tuesday after the attacks, said Denise Palazzo, its general manager.

All of Chattanooga, Tenn.-based CBL & Associates Properties’ 52 malls participated in relief efforts in their respective communities, according to John Martin Jr., CBL’s vice president of corporate relations and marketing. At the company’s headquarters, and in some of CBL’s malls, employees sold ribbons to aid the American Red Cross. They also collected pocket change through a campaign called Patriotic Pennies for the Red Cross, the proceeds of which will be used to pay for medical supplies as well as the housing and feeding of out-of-state rescue personnel.

General Growth Properties of Chicago partnered with Sears to raise money for the American Red Cross’s National Disaster Relief Fund, said Wally Brewster, the company’s senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. The REIT solicited donations from all of its 145 properties nationwide as well as through its Web site, he said.

Memorial overlooking Pentagon at end of Unity Walk from Fashion Centre.	Penning condolences at Santa Monica (Calif.) Place.

More than 60 shopping centers owned by Urban Retail Properties Co., Chicago, were turning over money collected in mall fountains to the American Red Cross rescue efforts, and the contributions were doubled when the company elected to match them. Usually, Urban’s fountain money is given to charities within a center’s community.

“The shopping centers managed by Urban are community gathering places, and provide a unique opportunity for us to raise a collective donation,” Urban Retail Properties Co. President Matthew S. Dominski said in a press release.

En route to the Pentagon from Fashion Centre.

Neighborhood centers have pitched in, too. In late September, employees of AstraZeneca, an international healthcare and pharmaceuticals firm in Wilmington, Del., sponsored a three-day drive for the United Service Organization (USO) in the Eckerd’s parking lot at the Fairfax Shopping Center, on Route 202 in the north end of the city. Donated items, which included food, drink, pain relievers and non-news magazines, were destined for military personnel and bereaved families at Dover Air Force Base, where the remains of the victims killed in the Pentagon attack were being collected and identified, said Lorraine Ryan, a spokeswoman for AstraZeneca. The USO had specified the items, knowing that the personnel were in for a grim and arduous task. AstraZeneca also donated $50,000 to the USO, and $1 million to the American Red Cross. At press time, the USO Fund For Freedom’s Finest had raised $1.2 million.

Also at press time, the American Red Cross had collected $200 million and a lot of donated materials besides. The organization was using at least $100 million to provide bereaved families with cash assistance for food, housing costs and burials, said Robert M. Bender Jr., CEO of the American Red Cross’s Greater New York chapter, during a visit to ICSC’s New York City headquarters in late September.

“People have been extraordinarily generous,” Bender said of the nationwide operation. “I’ve worked with the Red Cross for a long time, and I’ve never seen such an outpouring.”

By early October, The Salvation Army had collected up to $5 million and expected another $8 million from pledges. The United Way had received up to $114 million. Both organizations expected these figures to rise steadily.

Besides raising money and collecting materials, shopping centers also fulfilled another important need — serving as gathering places where people could mourn, provide mutual comfort and express their patriotism.

“Many people are at a loss as to how they can help,” said Susan Valentine, SCMD, senior vice president of marketing for The Macerich Co., Santa Monica, Calif., which organized collection drives and community events. “We wanted to open up our malls as a place where people can come together and respond as a community.”

“They [people] are told they can write a check, or donate blood, but there is something personally lacking in that expression,” said Jan Hyatt, marketing director of General Growth Properties’ Dover (Del.) Mall, where children and adults formed a human flag and sang patriotic songs. “There has to be a sense of contribution.”

The gathering coincided with the kickoff of the mall’s annual fund-raising event for schools, and local television stations were distributing a tape of the proceedings to their affiliates for broadcast in New York City; Washington, D.C.; and elsewhere.

The Mall of Orange in Orange, Calif., owned by Newman Properties, Long Beach, Calif., collected signatures for a condolence banner that organizers want to erect near the World Trade Center site. The 10-foot-by-5-foot banner read “Community of Orange, California Embracing the Spirit and Strength of Our Nation.”

 

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