Sleep technology company BedJet, led by local entrepreneur and inventor Mark Aramli, is announcing the launch of the Aramli Foundation. The Aramli Foundation is a new private charitable foundation intended to support local families and children in need and is funded directly by proceeds from the BedJet company. The Foundation’s mission is most heavily focused on Aquidneck Island children and family needs.
$100,000 has recently been funded to the Aramli Foundation, enabled by the over 100,000 units sold by the BedJet company and its continued emergence as a national sleep brand. The BedJet company is committed to ongoing funding of the Foundation for every BedJet Climate Comfort Sleep System sold.
The Foundation has already issued the following grants, with all Foundation funds expected to be fully disbursed to local family and children support needs within 2021:
– $10,000 donated to Child & Family of RI
– $10,000 donated to East Bay Community Action Program of RI (EBCAP)
– $25,000 donated to the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center of Newport (MLK Center)
– $5,000 donated to several church parishes
Said Dennis Roy, President of EBCAP, “On behalf of EBCAP, thanks to the Aramli Foundation and its leaders for the generous gift to our agency. These funds will make a difference and support the Newport County residents that we serve during these challenging times.”
“The MLK Community Center is thrilled to be one of the first beneficiaries of the Aramli Foundation,” said Heather Hole Strout, Executive Director. “These funds will help nourish, educate, and support families across Newport County. We so value their dedication to the MLK Community Center’s mission and their steadfast support. By supporting the most vulnerable among us, the Aramli Foundation marks itself as philanthropists deeply rooted in their community.”
The Aramli Foundation will also be funding a series of free lunches, dinners, and special events at the MLK Center, to be catered by a select number of local Newport restaurants. Said founder Mark Aramli, “Food is joy. While community food pantries have done an incredible job ensuring all those threatened with hunger have access to nourishing quality food, many local food pantry clients still do not get to experience the simple joy of a fine Newport restaurant meal that many of us take for granted. We’re so happy to enable this joyful experience to food pantry clients while at the same time providing some small boost to the local Newport restaurant community whose businesses have struggled this past year.”
Mark Aramli and his wife Ida are the initial Trustees with Newport resident Shelley Shaw as an alternate trustee. Said the husband-and-wife duo, “We are humbled to play some small role in supporting local families who need a lift. We are also both incredibly grateful to the worldwide and enthusiastic community of BedJet owners whose ongoing support of BedJet enables the charitable work of the Foundation.”
While trying to get the BedJet company off the ground, Mark Aramli appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank where he was quickly denied a deal and told by the Sharks that nobody would ever want a BedJet. “The product is dead already,” said Shark Kevin O’Leary. Five years later, the BedJet company was cited by Kiplinger’s magazine as one of the top ten most successful fails in the history of the Shark Tank show.
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