PHILADELPHIA -- Barry Appelbaum has watched his customers suffer long enough. The hardnosed business owner, who runs an Exxon-branded gas station in the gritty Port Richmond section of Philadelphia, is now playing a part in an ambitious project designed to provide free gasoline to struggling U.S. families.
"When a customer comes in with a maxed-out credit card and hands me three fives and seven ones to fill his tank, you know we're in trouble," Appelbaum told CSP Daily News. "The customer is still paying 25% to 30% of his paycheck on energy costs.… It hurts me to see the way my [image-nocss] customer base is dealing with the economy. People have no money. I want to do something that can help stimulate it."
He recently started working with 3Kingdoms Entertainment, a Philadelphia-based firm headed by Mikal Kamil, mostly by researching the downstream logistics in launching a global entertainment tour called Music Is Our Oil (MIO). Event organizers and producers expect to send America's "greatest" hip-hop and rock bands to oil-producing countries as a form of barter for excess oil gallons and other essential commodities. Their goal is to harvest enough oil—20 million barrels—to distribute free gasoline cards, each good for 125 gallons of gasoline, to as many as 3.2 million low-income American families through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.
Starting in June 2009, the event is expected to visit cities in nine host destinations: Canada, China, Nigeria, Norway, Russia, Southeast Asia, the United Arab Emirates, the United States and Venezuela. On October 11, 3Kingdoms will hold a free concert and press conference—the so-called "Beta Test"—in Philadelphia to kick off the event to do a "real-world evaluation" of the technology, logistics and marketability behind MIO.
The firm is seeking the support of other retailers—dealers and otherwise—specifically naming Philly-area retailing powerhouse Wawa Inc., Wawa, Pa., for its "marketing and direction" that are "head and shoulders above the status quo in the industry," said Appelbaum. MIO already has the backing of the Philadelphia-based Pennsylvania Gasoline Retailers Association & Allied Trades, according to Kamil, who has dubbed this teaming of MIO supporters "The Great Collaboration."
"We're in the process of booking talent for the October concert: hip-hop and alternative-rock groups from along the East Coast," Kamil told CSP Daily News. "What other dealers and retailers can do is sign on to participate in the beta-test concert.… We're calling on the dealers to help us figure out how they can collectively be part of the solution and help sponsor the gas cards for the Beta Test concert by contributing gas or cash."
The gasoline cards, while central to the program's success, represent a small part of the MIO initiative. 3Kingdoms is working with alternative-energy producers to educate consumers and raise awareness of the need for alternative fuels, such as ethanol.
"It's got to start now," said Appelbaum. "The resource of oil is dwindling. My grandchildren might not have fuel.… As we move the project forward, we'll get a lot of people on board. But this thing is getting bigger than just giving away free gas."
Ron Whitney is executive director of the nonprofit International Reciprocal Trade Association, Portsmouth, Va., which is committed to promoting "just and equitable standards" of practice and operation in modern trade-and-barter systems. 3Kingdoms approached Whitney six months ago to help with the MIO project.
"It's one of the most exciting things we've ever been involved in," Whitney said. "There is tremendous upside potential to assist the underprivileged with gasoline assistance.… I would say what they are attempting to do is on a scale that we rarely see, but it's certainly doable. We admire their vision, we respect their expertise, and we think they have the right team to make this vision a reality."
This is familiar territory for 3Kingdoms. The firm launched a fundraising concert called Artists For Heat in 2005, with the intention of providing wintertime heat to 6 million Americans who otherwise would have gone without. In 2007, the event's third year, Houston-based CITGO Petroleum Corp. was the title sponsor.
Norman Zarwin, a member attorney with the Philadelphia law firm Zarwin Baum DeVito Kaplan Schaer Toddy, has done some advisory work for 3Kingdoms on a pro-bono basis. "My impression is that their program is extraordinarily altruistic," he said. "The idea is a wonderful one modeled after others that have been highly successful, like Live Aid.… I don't think is going to get rich from it, frankly, but I do think it will be worthwhile for other business owners to get involved."
For more information or to participate in MIO, send an e-mail to 3kingdoms@verizon.net.
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