Forest City Associates Wear Jeans, Raise $250,000 for National and Local Charities

CLEVELAND, March 6, 2015  /3BL Media/ – Cleveland-based associates at Forest City Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE: FCEA and FCEB) recently passed a collective milestone by donating more than $250,000 to the company’s “Jeans Day for Charity” program since its inception in 2004.  More than 130 national, regional and local non-profit organizations have benefited from the program, which allows associates to wear blue jeans to work at the company’s Cleveland headquarters each Fridays in exchange for a five-dollar donation.

Among the many Cleveland-area organizations that have benefited from the program are Boys & Girls Club of Cleveland, the Greater Cleveland Food Bank, Hospice of the Western Reserve, Providence House and Shoes and Clothes for Kids.  A new charity is selected each month based on associates’ suggestions and urgency of need, and the charity receives the donations collected that month.

“I participate myself on Fridays, whenever I can,” said David J. LaRue, Forest City president and chief executive officer. “Jeans Day for Charity is a simple yet effective way for our associates to give back to the community. It’s also a great complement to our other, higher-profile community involvement efforts, like Community Day – our annual companywide day of service – or our yearly United Way campaign.”

Jeans Day for Charity was created by Forest City associates Sharon Lucas and Lori Louche. “We heard about a similar program and thought it would be great if we could do something along the same line,” Lucas said. “For the first few years, we only collected donations one day a month. As the program caught on with associates, we changed it to every Friday.”

“It’s a great feeling to have a positive impact on these organizations and their missions,” said Louche. “Our Cleveland associates have really embraced this program, and that is what has made Jeans Day for Charity such a success.”

As one example of how the program works, during the 2014 holiday season, University Settlement, a neighborhood center serving Cleveland’s Broadway-Slavic Village neighborhood, was selected for a special two-month program for November and December. In addition to Jeans Day donations, associates also donated clothes, toys and books for children. Over the two-month period, the company collected $3,724 in Jeans Day donations and more than $2,000 worth of donated items, all of which went to University Settlement to help neighborhood families and children during the holidays.

About Forest City

Forest City Enterprises, Inc. is an NYSE-listed national real estate company with $8.8 billion in total assets. The company is principally engaged in the ownership, development, management and acquisition of commercial and residential real estate throughout the United States. For more information, visit www.forestcity.net.  The company publically reports its sustainability goals and performance, along with a wide range of other metrics and activities, annually in a Corporate Social Responsibility report.  The report, along with other information on Forest City’s corporate social responsibility efforts, is available at csr.forestcity.net or 3blmedia.com/Profiles/Forest-City. 

Contacts:  Jill Ziegler, Director of Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility, 216-621-6060, jillziegler@forestcity.net, or Jeff Linton, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications and Community Relations, 216-621-6060, jefflinton@forestcity.net.