Corporate Contributions — Making a Difference in Our Communities

ffice Depot is deeply committed to making a meaningful difference in the communities where our employees live and work. We try to maximize the impact of our efforts by targeting our contributions to one primary cause: the education, health and welfare of children. • We further this cause by initiating and supporting charitable organizations that focus on children’s needs, as well as by matching each of our retail stores, distribution centers and warehouses to a non-profit organization that helps needy children. We also donate back-to-school products to worthy children’s charities through Gifts in Kind International. We fund programs that assist abused and neglected children, such as CHARLEE’s Children’s Depot. We provide free merchandise and supply financial aid to students and teachers in under-funded school districts nationwide through the Kids in Need Resource Center. We contribute products to Junior Achievement and foster this organization’s child mentoring programs. We help feed hungry children and their families by supporting America’s Second Harvest. We contribute to qualified schools in the U.S. and Canada under our own “Free Supplies for Your School” program. And we encourage our employees to volunteer at local non-profit agencies. In addition, all of our North American Retail stores participate in Code Adam, a child safety-awareness program sponsored by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. These are just a few of the ways in which Office Depot is taking care of kids and making a difference in the communities where we live and work.

Extending a Helping Hand
In 2001, Office Depot extended our philanthropic focus beyond our primary cause of improving the health, education and welfare of children, becoming one of the nation’s first public companies to funnel relief funds to victims of September 11th. Through corporate and employee donations to the United Way’s September 11th Disaster Relief Fund, the National Red Cross, and the Police, Fireman and Emergency Services Fund, as well as product donations to schools affected by the tragedy, we contributed more than $1 million, and thousands of volunteer hours to this worthy cause.