Store Contest Will Profit 2 N.Y. Nonprofits

A retailer of outdoor apparel is holding a contest to decide which two New York City nonprofits should receive grants of $4,000, and it’s putting the decision in shoppers’ hands.“Vote Your Choice,” a contest that began in early June and will end Saturday, asks visitors to Patagonia’s Upper West Side and SoHo stores to vote on which environmental advocacy group should receive the grant.Each Patagonia store chose five organizations it wanted to participate based on past grants to the nonprofits and “who would be best representative of their community,” Patagonia’s head of marketing for North America retail stores, Vickie Achee, said.Patagonia’s store in SoHo selected groups that focus on dense, urban environments, such as Recycle-A-Bicycle and the More Gardens Coalition, an advocacy group for community gardens.On the Upper West Side, the Bronx River Alliance, Riverkeeper, Newtown Creek Alliance, Solar One, and Rocking the Boat are in the running for the grant.The 10 organizations are of varying sizes — for some, $4,000 would be significant; for others, it is barely a fraction of their yearly operating budgets.“We’re a very small organization, so $4,000 certainly helps us,” the director of development for the Bronx River Alliance, Leslie Lannon, said.Ms. Lannon said the grant money would go to funding the 10-person construction crew the group pays to clean the Bronx River and run ecological projects.For the executive director of Recycle-A-Bicycle, Lisa Stein, the money would come in time to fund the group’s fall programming, which includes taking city children on “serious bike rides” and teaching others skills such as bicycle repair and retailing.Rocking the Boat — an organization that teaches children in the south Bronx traditional wooden boatbuilding — has been in existence for more than a decade and has a yearly budget of $1.3 million, its founder and executive director, Adam Green, said.“$4,000 is great, we love it, but it’s not paying for any specific program or activity,” Mr. Green said.Instead, he noted, the exposure and outreach possibilities the Patagonia contest provides are the real benefit, as is the hope of developing a closer relationship with Patagonia, which gives 1% of its annual profits to environmental groups each year.“It’s always been our company making the decisions about donations,” Ms. Achee said. “This is a way to engage customers and educate people about local issues.”

Store Contest Will Profit 2 N.Y. Nonprofits

Store Contest Will Profit 2 N.Y. Nonprofits

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