This is the headline from the company’s press release:
Barnes & Noble Donates Books, Toys And Games Valued At $3.4 Million, To Military Charities
Bookstore Joins America Supports You Team at Andrews AFB Joint Service Open House
Y3K Grafix and Penske Logistics Truck Goods Across the Country.
and from CEO Marie Toulantis:
“On behalf of all the booksellers at Barnes & Noble, we thank America Supports You for this opportunity to express our support to our fellow Americans,”
It sounds like as grand a patriotic gesture as one could hope for from a corporation.
But could it be so noble?
This is the how we got there:
Barnes & Noble decides to close their 38,000 square foot Memphis warehouse as part of a consolidation effort. 200 employees lose their jobs.
Typically, instead of incurring the expense of redistributing the merchandise to other Barnes & Noble locations they donate the books, toys and games to a local charity and take the write-off.
Luckily, one of those getting laid off was a former Marine and knew about the Department of Defense program America Supports You which connects “citizens and corporations with military personnel and their families serving at home and abroad.”
The inventory was given to them and then 2 transportation companies take it all over the country.
The headline could of read:
Barnes & Noble closes Memphis warehouse
Barnes & Noble writes off $3.4 Million of inventory
Barnes & Noble joins America Supports You, a Department of Defense program
Someone else comes and does all the work
Then their first act as an “official America Supports You corporate supporter” is to set the military up as an affiliate, build them a “special website” www.BN.com/asy and give them 5% of every sale.
Only in today’s America could putting two hundred people out of work be twisted into a patriotic gesture.
“Bookselling giant Barnes and Noble opened a new chapter in its history today by announcing a donation of 300,000 items to America Supports You” was the lead sentence of the American Forces Press Service press release.
I am not sure if this is a chapter I would want to open. Forget what’s going on in the bookselling world, with all that is going on with the current administration and the war in Iraq this might not be the best time to align yourself with the Department of Defense.