On December 14, Gucci announced that the luxury Italian fashion house will donate an additional 200,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as a part of an ongoing commitment to vaccine equity on behalf of its employees.
This is not the first time Gucci has worked with UNICEF in order to improve access to vaccines across the world. In December 2020, Gucci donated $500,000 to UNICEF, along with an additional $100,000 from the Gucci community, to ensure the rollout of safe and effective vaccines internationally, forecast demand, prepare for temperature-controlled cold chains, and the advance purchasing of supplies.
“From day 1 of this pandemic – even before COVID-19 was technically defined as a pandemic – we said, with no hesitation, that only science would help us emerge from the darkness,” Marco Bizzarri, president and CEO of Gucci said in a statement. “And we made a clear commitment with these words: we are all in this together. Now, after almost two years, we believe in this affirmation, more than ever – if vaccines aren’t available to all, the pandemic will never truly end.”
Gucci and UNICEF’s ongoing relationship has been in the works since 2005, and since it’s conception and the onset of the COIVD-19 pandemic, Gucci has been responsible for the procuring and delivering 600 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to 144 countries, delivering 609,000 rapid tests to 55 countries and conducting risk communication and community engagement activities throughout 88 countries.
