Walgreens Donates $250,000 to Hurricane Sandy Relief Efforts

Two-thirds of Stores Closed by Storm Reopen

DEERFIELD, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Walgreen Co. (NYSE: WAG) (Nasdaq: WAG) said Wednesday it will donate $250,000 to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund, supporting East Coast communities recovering from Hurricane Sandy.

The company also is donating three semitrailer truckloads of bottled water to a Red Cross facility in New Brunswick, N.J., to distribute throughout the disaster area. Walgreens stores in the region also are donating merchandise in response to community requests that have come in since the storm’s impact.

Walgreens continues its aggressive effort to serve customers by reopening stores, keeping 24-hour stores in operation and restocking shelves. By 2 p.m. eastern time Wednesday, more than two-thirds of the 750 stores initially closed due to the storm had reopened, leaving only 239 still closed. More than a dozen were open without power and 55 were open despite light or moderate damage. Numerous stores are operating with electric generators, 180 of which were stationed in advance of the storm for rapid deployment. Walgreens has nearly 1,400 stores in the impacted area.

Major Walgreens distribution centers, including facilities in Windsor, Conn., Bethlehem, Penn., and Maspeth, N.Y., the latter serving Duane Reade stores, have full power restored and are operating.

Store status information is regularly updated throughout the emergency and is available online at http://news.walgreens.com.

About Walgreens

As the nation's largest drugstore chain with fiscal 2012 sales of $72 billion, Walgreens (www.walgreens.com) vision is to become America’s first choice for health and daily living. Each day, Walgreens provides more than 6 million customers the most convenient, multichannel access to consumer goods and services and trusted, cost-effective pharmacy, health and wellness services and advice in communities across America. Walgreens scope of pharmacy services includes retail, specialty, infusion, medical facility and mail service, along with respiratory services. These services improve health outcomes and lower costs for payers including employers, managed care organizations, health systems, pharmacy benefit managers and the public sector. The company operates 7,944 drugstores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Take Care Health Systems is a Walgreens subsidiary that is the largest and most comprehensive manager of worksite health and wellness centers and in-store convenient care clinics, with more than 700 locations throughout the country.