SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Mary's Place announced today that Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) will donate more than 47,000 sq. ft. of space within Amazon’s newest headquarters building as a permanent home for a Mary's Place Family Shelter. This first-of-its-kind partnership will include 65 rooms, which will shelter more than 200 homeless women, children, and families each night.
“To have a permanent downtown Seattle location within Amazon is a game-changer for Mary’s Place and the families we serve,” said Marty Hartman, Executive Director of Mary’s Place. “We’ve loved being Amazon’s neighbor, and now the opportunity to move into their headquarters permanently is truly a dream come true. This unique, first-of-its-kind shelter will remind families that they matter and that their community wants to help them succeed.”
Watch footage of Amazon’s surprise announcement to Mary’s Place Executive Director Marty Hartman
“Mary’s Place does incredible, life-saving work every day for women, children, and families experiencing homelessness in the Seattle community,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “We are lucky to count them as neighbors and thrilled to offer them a permanent home within our downtown Seattle headquarters – Amazon employees and Mary’s Place residents will move in together in early 2020.”
In April 2016, Amazon provided Mary's Place with temporary use of a vacant building on its growing urban campus – a former Travelodge hotel. Amazon upgraded and decorated the building and included utilities for more than 200 family members while awaiting construction of a new building. Construction at 2213 8th Ave is scheduled to begin in the fall, and Amazon will work with Mary's Place to temporarily move the families to another former hotel across the street as it builds this new, permanent home.
The new Mary’s Place shelter will include a family resource center similar to those at Mary's Place Family Centers in North Seattle and White Center where more than 40 local nonprofits and teams of community and corporate volunteers join Mary's Place staff onsite to provide services and work with families to help them secure permanent housing and employment.
Amazon employees are frequent visitors and volunteers at the existing shelter – bringing meals, organizing arts and crafts projects, throwing parties for the families, and more. By sharing permanent space with Mary's Place, Amazon employees will now have even more opportunities to volunteer and support the organization and the families they serve.
About Mary’s Place: Mary’s Place empowers women, children, and families to reclaim their lives by providing shelter, nourishment, resources, healing and hope in a safe community. They operate several family night shelters that work to place families in stable housing by providing employment, housing, financial, and wellness resources. More info is available at marysplaceseattle.org, https://www.facebook.com/marysplacewa, twitter.com/marysplacewa
About Amazon: Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews
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