Poetry with Purpose Presenting Sponsor

Save Mart Companies: Community Engagement at Its Best!

Written by Kristin Galloway
Senior Manager, Community Relations

Save Mart Community Connection Overview

For nearly 75 years, Save Mart has been part of the everyday rhythm of Central Valley communities. Our stores are places where neighbors cross paths, families prepare to gather, and people find the nourishment they need to care for themselves and one another.

We also recognize that nourishment extends beyond what fits in a grocery cart. Healthy communities require safety, dignity, belonging, trusted relationships, and access to support during life’s most difficult moments. That is why community connection is not simply a corporate initiative for Save Mart. It is part of who we are as a neighborhood grocer.

We believe businesses with deep community roots have a responsibility to be present, useful, and invested in the places they serve. Through partnerships with trusted organizations such as HAVEN, Save Mart can help strengthen the network of care surrounding our neighbors and contribute to a community where more people have the support they need to move forward.

What draws you to sponsor HAVEN’s events?

Save Mart is drawn to sponsoring HAVEN’s events because they bring people together around work that is both deeply personal and critically important. HAVEN serves individuals affected by domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking with compassion, expertise, and respect. Its events help sustain those essential services while inviting the broader community to listen, learn, and become part of the response.

Poetry with Purpose is especially meaningful because it transforms storytelling into community action. Poetry can give language to experiences that are difficult to explain, create connection across different life experiences, and offer survivors a way to reclaim voice, visibility, and power. The event brings survivors, artists, advocates, businesses, and neighbors into one space to affirm that these stories deserve to be heard.

For Save Mart, sponsorship means more than placing our name alongside an event. It means using our presence to help elevate organizations doing essential work and making a tangible investment in their ability to continue. Every ticket purchased, seat filled, and sponsorship secured helps support HAVEN’s services while sending survivors an important message: their community sees them, believes them, and is willing to stand beside them.

Strong communities do not simply happen. They are nurtured by people and organizations willing to show up for one another. Save Mart is honored to show up for HAVEN and help amplify the courage, hope, and purpose at the heart of this event.

What resonates with you about HAVEN’s work in our community?

What resonates most with Save Mart is HAVEN’s understanding that helping someone move from crisis toward healing requires both immediate assistance and sustained human connection.

HAVEN does not define survivors by a single experience. Its work recognizes the whole person and provides support addressing safety, stability, dignity, and the ability to move forward. Through shelter, counseling, legal assistance, education, advocacy, and trauma response, HAVEN meets people during extraordinarily difficult moments and remains beside them as they begin rebuilding their lives.

That approach closely reflects how Save Mart thinks about community care. As a neighborhood grocer, we provide an essential form of nourishment, but we know food alone does not create a healthy community. People also need to feel safe in their homes, know where to turn for help, and have advocates who will listen without judgment.

Our stores are woven into the everyday lives of the communities we serve. We see families through ordinary routines, celebrations, hardships, emergencies, and new beginnings. That daily connection creates both an opportunity and a responsibility to recognize the larger needs surrounding our neighbors.

HAVEN’s work reminds us that no one should have to navigate their hardest moments alone. Its combination of practical support, courageous advocacy, and genuine compassion strengthens not only individual survivors, but our entire community. Save Mart is proud to help provide the partnership and resources that allow that vital work to continue.