It’s not like there is a shortage of 7-Eleven Inc. franchises in the Manhattan area. But apparently that doesn’t bother the huge corporation that is expecting to open a further 14 stores (in addition to the 12 it has already) in 2012 in Chelsea, Greenwich Village, Midtown and the Upper East Side. According to the company’s VP of real estate, Dan Porter, the reason is obvious: “between the number of folks living in Manhattan, coupled with the worker population, there's significant demand and opportunity.”
Manhattan’s Poor
This all seems very nice from a business perspective. But shouldn’t we try to step aside for a bit and be kinder? Given that over 16 percent of individuals have income below the poverty line, wouldn’t it be better and kinder for the hugely successful 7-Eleven chain spends a little of its profits on donating to the needy in society? Well, research actually shows that one can hardly criticize 7-Eleven in this area since its corporate social responsibility program in Malaysia successfully raised RM26,220 from donation boxes placed at its outlets. This particular recent charity drive was held in aid of the National Kidney Foundation of Malaysia (NKF). In addition, a staggering 1,315 7-Eleven stores throughout America participated in the "Spare A Change, Save A Life" donation drive that took place last November. NFK’s CEO Chua Hong Wee said, “NFK is grateful to 7-Eleven's kind support in this meaningful charity drive; the funds will definitely help ease the burden of our kidney patients. All the support and kindness shown have enabled NKF to continue to do what we do best, providing dialysis care to poor kidney patients and also educating the public on kidney care.”
7-Eleven Cares
So it’s all about karma and it probably thus should be welcomed that 7-Eleven is doing so well in the world of corporatism and capitalism. Rather than be bitter about this corporation’s success, one should be supporting it. It’s all very well bemoaning these large companies and complaining they are running out other companies as Tweeter Hyun Kim did recently by Tweeting, “Support your local bodega before it gets taken over by 7-Eleven or is forced to close by 7-Eleven,” but at the end of the day, we should be congratulating and encouraging the company to continue what it’s doing as it is clearly helping those in need in a huge way.
