WE Teachers: Walgreens and WE
Since 2014, Walgreens and WE have partnered to drive positive impact in the United States and internationally in Kenya through various programs, ranging from retail activations to WE Day youth celebrations and WE Schools, an innovative series of experiential service-learning programs.
With a shared mission around empowering youth, WE and Walgreens in 2019 came together to launch a program geared toward educators and timed for the 2019 back-to-school season. The new program, WE Teachers, was the first, nationwide education-focused campaign for Walgreens.
Together with back-to-school supplier partners, Walgreens committed to donating $5 million to the ME to WE Foundation to fund the development of the WE Teachers program. The campaign kicked off at the start of the critical back-to-school time frame, from July 21 through Sept. 7.
The WE Teachers curriculum features five modules and one foundational module: trauma-informed, which is a module about creating a safe and welcoming space for students; mental health and well-being, bullying, diversity inclusion, poverty and youth violence.
The modules began rolling out in September and were rolled out throughout the 2019-20 school year in English and Spanish.
The goal of the WE Teachers curriculum is to empower teachers in their conversations with students on these critical social issues. WE Teachers supports educators as they work with students who have experienced- or are currently experiencing- traumatic situations, as well as helping teachers take preventative measures to avoid trauma.
The collective Key Performance Indicators were:
- Deliver a compelling program that celebrates America’s teachers and empowers them to be their very best with the tools they need to succeed so they can empower their students
- Increase Walgreens store traffic for back-to-school purchases as a way for customers to support Walgreens’ WE Teachers initiative
- Increase sales of participating back-to-school products at Walgreens (the support of suppliers, in turn, supported Walgreens commitment to fund the development of WE Teachers)
- Brand awareness for WE Teachers, Walgreens and ME to WE
The WE Teachers program had three main components:
- WE Teachers Award: Walgreens and WE encouraged consumers to nominate deserving educators who go above and beyond to receive a WE Teachers Award. Each recipient receives a $500 Walgreens gift card to purchase classroom supplies
- An Online Hub: The hub can be accessed through weteachers.org and is a place for teachers to find educational resources, modules and connect and collaborate with each other.
- WE Teachers modules: Five modules cover the following subjects: Mental wellbeing and bullying; trauma-informed classrooms; poverty; youth violence and diversity & inclusion.
In shopping at Walgreens for back-to-school, customers supported Walgreens’ effort to support teachers through their purchases, including ME to WE products (developed by the WE organization). Consumers could also show their support for this initiative via ME to WE Proud Supporter brands that were available for purchase at check-out. Shoppers could also purchase specially wrapped Hershey Give Education emoji chocolate bars. The candy bars served as a hero item for the program, were co-branded with ME to WE, and a per-unit contribution went toward the total donation by Walgreens to the WE Teachers program.
In addition, the organizations established partnerships with the National PTA and NSBA to reach educators and parents and worked with them to develop sponsored articles, social media posts, blog posts, e-newsletter mentions with links to the WE Teachers landing page.
WE Teachers was also supported through a dynamic and in-depth social and PR campaign executed by WE and Walgreens and WE Teachers was further amplified through the 2019 WE Day broadcast that aired nationwide on ABC on August 9.
As a result, brand awareness of WE Teachers and ME to WE brand increased from 3% to 6%.
Additionally, over 2,000 teachers participated in teacher training with over 427,000 teachers reached and over 19,000 teachers engaged.
