Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements (continued) (a) The investment objective of the RITC (formerly Russell) Multi-Asset Core Plus Fund seeks to provide long-term growth of capital over a market cycle by offering a diversified portfolio of funds and separate accounts investing in global stock, return seeking fixed income, commodities, global real estate and opportunistic investments. They hold a dynamic mix of underlying Russell Investments funds and/or separate accounts. Russell Investments is a strong proponent of disciplined strategic asset allocation and rebalancing strategies, and believes that unstable movements in the market have the potential to create opportunities. By identifying short-term mispricing, and making small tactical adjustments to the Multi-Asset Core Plus Fund, they believe there is potential to enhance returns while continuing to manage risks. (b) The Target Duration LDI Fixed Income Funds seek to outperform their respective Barclays-Russell LDI Indexes over a full market cycle.  These Funds invest primarily in investment grade corporate bonds that closely match those found in discount curves used to value U.S. pension liabilities. They seek to provide additional incremental return through modest interest rate timing, security selection and tactical use of non-credit sectors. Generally, for use in combination with other bond funds to gain additional credit exposure, with the goal of reducing the mismatch between a plan’s assets and liabilities. (c) The STRIPS (Separate Trading of Registered Interest and Principal of Securities) Funds seek to provide duration and Treasury exposure by investing in an optimized subset of the STRIPS universe with a similar duration profile as the Barclays U.S. Treasury STRIPS 10-11 year, 16- 16 year or 28-29 year Index. These passively managed funds are generally used with other bond funds to add additional duration to the asset portfolio. This will help reduce the mismatch between a plan’s assets and liabilities. The investment portfolio contains a diversified blend of common stocks, bonds, cash equivalents, and other investments, which may reflect varying rates of return. The investments are further diversified within each asset classification. The portfolio diversification provides protection against a single security or class of securities having a disproportionate impact on aggregate performance. The Company has elected to change its investment strategy to better match the assets with the underlying plan liabilities. Currently, the long-term target allocations for plan assets are 50% in equities and 50% in fixed income although the actual plan asset allocations may be within a range around these targets. The actual asset allocations are reviewed and rebalanced on a periodic basis to maintain the target allocations. It is expected that, as the funded status of the plans improves, more assets will be invested in long-duration fixed income instruments. The plans’ assets include 217,018 shares of the common stock of the Company having a market value of $6,625,560 and $5,247,495 at December 28, 2019 and December 29, 2018, respectively. No shares were purchased in 2019 or 2018 nor were and shares sold in either period. Dividends received during 2019 and 2018 on the common stock of the Company were $95,488 and $95,488 respectively. U.S. salaried and non-union hourly employees and most employees of the Company’s Canadian subsidiaries are covered by defined contribution plans. The Company has a contributory savings plan under Section 401(k) of the Internal Revenue Code covering substantially all U.S. non-union employees. This plan allows participants to make voluntary contributions of up to 100% of their annual compensation on a pretax basis, subject to IRS limitations. The plan provides for contributions by the Company at its discretion. 10. RETIREMENT BENEFIT PLANS  (continued) The Eastern Company 56