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The L.J. Skaggs and Mary C. Skaggs
Foundation
~
L.J.
Skaggs, born in 1899, was one of twelve brothers and sisters,
the children of a Baptist Minister from Missouri. As a child
his family moved to American Falls, Idaho, and L.J. started
his lifelong affection for the Pacific Northwest. With
the eldest brother, O.P. Skaggs leading the way, all six brothers
became enormously successful merchants. One brother, M.B.,
made an innovative contribution to marketing; the supermarket—one
stop grocery shopping. The brothers developed and refined
their merchandising techniques in the early years of the twentieth
century through a number of chains, most especially Skaggs
United Grocers.
~
While
working for O.P. Skaggs (who subsequently developed Osco Drugs),
L.J. met Mary Dee who was store manager of the Ogden, Utah
store. Mary was born in Rotterdam, Holland on January 23,
1900, the eldest of six children. Her father was a printer
who converted to the Mormon Church and immigrated to the United
States in 1906, eventually settling in Ogden, Utah. Mary was
raised in a family of avid readers with a keen sense of history
and tradition, deep religious faith, the concept of service
to the community and a love for the performing arts.
~
L.J.
and Mary married in 1919 and so began a partnership that was
to last more than 50 years. For the first years of their
married life, L.J. and Mary worked together in the organization
and operation of L.J.'s chain of Pay and Take It Stores. In
1927 L.J.'s brother, M.B. Skaggs, consolidated the various
Skaggs entities into Safeway Stores, a worldwide supermarket
chain. L.J. and Mary moved to Nebraska and then to Oregon
where L.J. managed regions of the Safeway operations. Mary
was always at his side helping at store openings and meeting
with suppliers and customers and assisting in advertising
and promotional campaigns.
~In
1932, L.J. decided to translate his supermarket experience
to drug store operations and opened the first Pay Less Drug
Store in Tacoma, Washington. Success of the merchandising
concept proved itself immediately and soon a chain of Pay
Less Drug Stores blanketed the Western United States.
As the company continued to grow and expand, when L.J. felt
he was unable to give the far-flung stores his full attention,
he would sell stores to his brothers and associates. By 1965,
he retained only the California Pay Less Stores which, through
subsequent sales and acquisitions, is now part of Rite-Aid.
~L.J.
and Mary Skaggs had one daughter, Virginia, who died in 1964.
In 1967, the couple established The L.J. Skaggs and Mary C.
Skaggs Foundation as a California charitable corporation to
manage their philanthropy. The Foundation's grants have supported
a wide range of charitable endeavors and interests in the
past 30 years, but a primary purpose of the Foundation has
always been to support programs and projects to preserve and
increase appreciation for America's historical and cultural
heritage through grants in the United States and abroad, especially
England.
~L.J. Skaggs died in
December, 1970, and Mary Skaggs succeeded as President of
the Foundation and has served continuously for 30 years.
~The Foundation's total
grants since inception are in excess of $32,000,000.00 to
a wide variety of charitable and philanthropic endeavors in
the United States and internationally. Mrs. Skaggs and
the Foundation have received many honors and awards over the
years in recognition of their philanthropic activities.
Most recently, in the Birthday Honours List of June 1999,
Queen Elizabeth II created Mrs. Skaggs an Honorary Commander
Of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of Mrs.
Skaggs' philanthropic activities in the United Kingdom.
Offices
of the Foundation
1221 Broadway, 21st Floor
Oakland, California 94612-1837
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O N T A C T U S
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