After a 2025 national boycott, profit loss and change in leadership, Target is emphasizing the company’s work to engage and support communities across the U.S., including in the nation’s capital.
As part of Target’s nationwide community service initiative Bullseye Builds, launched in 2024, the corporation is collaborating with local organizations to revitalize a community garden at Town Hall Education Arts Recreation Campus (THEARC) in Southeast D.C.
”I think the most exciting thing about this event is what happens when we leave,” Target Executive Vice President Kiera Fernandez told The Informer, ”and that is the community will have a space with some transformation done to it so the people that live here are able to come in, be in the garden, walk the path and see the new paint. Kids can come here [and] see we left the space better than we found it ”
Volunteers that joined this Bullseye Builds event— including Fernandez and other company leadership and employees from stores across the DMV area— were tasked with improving the walking trail, community garden, greenhouse and mural behind the THEARC campus.
“We want our teams and our guests [at Target] to know that we’re incredibly invested in our local communities,” said Manjot Guraya, group vice president for Target stores mostly in D.C. and Virginia, with a few locations also in Maryland and North Carolina. “I think as a D.C. resident who grew up in the area and lives in Union Market, it’s awesome when the company that I work for and the teams that I get to work with every day are excited to show up and invest in the local community.”
With THEARC housing 15 nonprofits, two private, tuition-free schools, and servicing more than 60,000 people a year, Target chose the community garden as a way to connect with Washingtonians. Target teamed up with Building Bridges Across the River, THEARC, and Volunteer Fairfax on July 8 to launch their revitalization work in the District –– one of 13 Bullseye Builds projects across the U.S., funded through a $1 million investment.
The Volunteer Fairfax team helped gather more than 100 volunteers and supplies, and handled the logistics of the day.
Together, the volunteers laid down fresh soft mulch and brick linings for the trail, new seedlings and flowers for the garden, and fresh paint for the children’s mural.
For Guraya, who grew up in the DMV and started as an assistant manager at Target 13 years ago, Bullseye Builds sends an important message to the community and people who work for his corporation.
“A lot of the team members that are here today live and work in the greater D.C. area,” he told The Informer. “I think it was really important that we show up for the community and I think we’re also showing our teams that we’re incredibly invested in supporting the local communities that they live in.”
Target Volunteer Says ‘DEI Never Really Went Anywhere’
The Bullseye Builds initiative was launched in 2024, about a year before three Minnesota activists— Nekima Levy Armstrong, Monique Cullars-Doty, and Jaylani Hussein— called for the original Target boycott.
CNBC reported in January 2025 about a Target employee receiving an internal memo, reportedly written and sent by Fernandez, detailing the Minneapolis-based retailer’s plan to end its three-year diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) goals.
In cutting DEI efforts, Target, under former Target CEO Brian Cornell, would stop external diversity surveys to nonprofits like the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index. Further, the corporation would end supplier diversity programs that brought more products from Black and minority-owned businesses.
Levy Armstrong, Cullars-Doty and Hussein ignited the boycott, sparking other activists, such as the Rev. Al Sharpton, the Rev. Jamal Bryant and Tamika Mallory, to join the fight.
“[Target ] acted cowardly, and they made the decision to bow down to the Trump administration,” Levy Armstrong told MPR News in January 2024, “when we are here today, saying we will not bow down.”
Nonetheless, the corporation felt the sting. Since Target’s first rollback, the company lost at least $12 billion in valuation and about three-quarters of profit, according to a March Washington Informer report. Following the resulting backlash and declining sales, Michael Fiddelke took over as Target’s CEO.
Still, two years since the internal memo was sent, Fiddelke has not issued a public statement denouncing previous stances. However, the CEO has reportedly apologized internally to employees.
“As a billion-dollar company, you cannot harm people in public and then apologize in private,” said Mallory, co-founder of the intersectional social justice organization known as Until Freedom in March 2026. “If the harm was public, then the acknowledgement must be public as well. It must be clear and it must be heard by all of those impacted.”
Having worked for the company as a store executive right out of college, Fernandez, chief community and stakeholder engagement officer, said community service is “deeply rooted in Target’s DNA.” As a byproduct of the Dayton Hudson Corporation, Fernandez, while volunteering at the Thursday afternoon event, said Target has long been focused and invested in communities and belonging.
“There are shifts that happen in business all of the time,” Fernandez, who also serves as president of the Target Foundation, told The Informer. “We’ve had a long-standing history of being really focused on inclusive workspaces, accessible workspaces, investing in diverse-represented organizations and people. Our team is 50% women, more than 50% people of color, and you see that represented everywhere we go in our stores and our distribution centers.”
Carlos King, a food and beverage coordinator for Target in the Richmond and Virginia Beach areas, was most excited that this Bullseye Builds event brought together team members from as far as Minneapolis to witness and participate in the company’s community efforts in the nation’s capital.
“Coming from a person who’s been with the company for 10 years, I can definitely say DEI never really went anywhere when it comes to Target. Yes, our old CEO made that statement, but as you look around, you see just the diversity of Target that is around here helping in this project alone,” King told The Informer. “We shouldn’t allow one person to make one statement to define the entire company.”
Continuing a Longstanding Local Partnership
Building Bridges Across the River has been partnering with Target for seven years, even before the Bullseye Builds initiative was introduced.
“We were investing in the nearby communities of Southeast D.C. to make sure that long-term residents are the ones who can benefit from our coming investments, and that really resonated with Target,” said Scott Kratz, president and CEO of Building Bridges Across the River.
Target first started supporting Building Bridges in their construction training programs at the Skyline Workforce Center. Kratz said that the organization’s community projects attracted Target, leading to years of service, including: assisting residents in gaining construction jobs, helping 215 east of the river renters become homeowners, and supporting multiple art markets in Southeast D.C.
Expanding their partnership, Target staff reached out to Kratz about collaborating with Bullseye Builds to redo the nature space at THEARC, the building that serves as a hub for the five signature non-profits collaborating with Building Bridges Across the River.
Further, in collaboration with faith communities and non-profits, Building Bridges runs seven urban farms in Southeast D.C.
“We wanted to make sure that we were creating a series of paths, some art and really just creating a place of respite for the community to come in, as we’re anticipating thousands of east of the river residents on our property,” Kratz told The Informer.
Target volunteers restored the campus’ greenhouses and added some accessibility features to the garden for all to enjoy the space. The food grown from this farm is used at Building Bridges’ Food and Farm Fridays, which serves 4,500 families fresh fruit, vegetables, seedlings and flowers.
“For a neighborhood that has a lack of access to mental health services, having a place where kids and families can come in and take a moment to breathe is critical,” Kratz told The Informer on July 8, “and that will be one of the many outcomes that come from today.”
Fernandez said the Target team is continuing “to bring vibrancy in” and “beautify neighborhoods.”
“Not just revitalize, necessarily, because that [implies] that the community doesn’t already have what they need,” the chief community and stakeholder engagement officer continued. “Target wants to be in lockstep with the community; bringing vibrancy to a space that’s already beautiful.”
