Community Service Roundup June 2019: Initiatives by 8 Retailers
By Kristina Hurtig on Jun. 13, 2019CHICAGO — This community-service roundup features the charitable efforts of eight convenience-store retailers and four suppliers.
Their commitments to organizations such as Habitat for Humanity and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, as well as local schools and food banks, illustrate just how giving this industry is.
Click through to read about these initiatives ...
Enmarket
As part of the 2019 Enmarket Encourage Health Series, Savannah, Ga.-based Enmarket and Healthy Savannah have presented $1,000 to Park Place Outreach Youth Emergency Services. The check presentation was followed by a service day at the Park Place Outreach house with volunteers from Enmarket.
Park Place Outreach, which supports runaway, homeless and at-risk youth ages 11-21, is one of four area nonprofit organizations that will receive a $1,000 grant as part of the 2019 series.
Kum & Go
This year, Kum & Go, its associates and its customers throughout 11 states have donated more than $600,000 toward Habitat for Humanity’s work to build strength, stability and self-reliance through affordable shelter. Des Moines, Iowa-based Kum & Go is Habitat for Humanity’s only national convenience-retail partner. It has raised more than $3.2 million for Habitat for Humanity since 2014, through associate and customer donations, the sale of Kum & Go water during the month of the campaign and Kum & Go corporate grants.
In early June, Kum & Go also collected donations in support of American Red Cross disaster relief efforts in the Midwest, which has been hit by historic flooding and tornadoes. The retailer collected $52,263.44, with an additional $10,000 donated by Kum & Go.
MFA Oil
Columbia, Mo.-based MFA Oil’s fifth annual Charity Golf Scramble and Concert raised $140,000 for Operation Homefront, a national nonprofit organization that provides emergency and financial assistance to the families of U.S. military service members and veterans.The event was held June 3 at The Club at Old Hawthorne in Columbia and featured 61 teams and a private concert by country music singer Lee Brice.
Parker's
Rutter’s
Rutter’s 17th annual Children’s Charities Golf Outing raised more than $325,000 for central Pennsylvania charities. The two-day golf outing has raised more than $1.74 million since its beginning in 2003.
The York, Pa.-based retailer also recently donated $100,000 to the new UPMC Pinnacle Memorial Hospital, which is slated to open in August in York. As a family organization, Rutter’s is committed to becoming part of each community it serves. Rutter’s goal is to raise more than $1 million in charitable donations for 2019.
Sheetz
Sheetz for the Kidz, an employee-driven charity that helps children in need, donated $601,000 in May to local Feeding America member food banks to provide hunger relief to children in states in which Sheetz operates: Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio and Maryland.
The donation will help provide 6 million meals and is part of Altoona, Pa.-based Sheetz’s new commitment to Feeding America. Through its Made-to-Share program, Sheetz will make weekly food donations from its 588 stores to Feeding America member food banks.
Stewart’s Shops
Susan Dake, president of the Stewart’s Foundation and a former Girl Scout, was given a Girl Scout Honorary Gold Award at a ceremony that honored eight Girl Scouts with Gold Awards.
Dake was selected for the honorary award because of her longstanding personal engagement and support of several charities, hospitals and educational institutions across the region. Stewart’s Foundation is the charitable arm of Saratoga Springs, N.Y.-based Stewart’s Shops.
VERC Enterprises
Duxbury, Mass.-based VERC Enterprises recently gave $500 grants each to the Fiske Elementary School in Lexington and The Gifford School in Weston. The grants are made possible through the ExxonMobil Educational Alliance Program, which is funded by ExxonMobil Corp. and Global Partners LLC. It is designed to provide local retailers an opportunity to invest in the future of their communities through educational grants to neighborhood schools.
Kraft Heinz
Kraft Heinz is joining the #CrackCancer challenge, in which athletes, sports teams and celebrities crack an egg on their head on social media in an effort to help raise money to fight pediatric brain cancer in coordination with the Willie Strong Foundation. The Chicago-based company has pledged $10,000 on behalf of their Just Crack an Egg brand of microwavable scrambled egg breakfast bowls.
Krispy Krunchy Chicken
Lafayette, La.-based Krispy Krunchy Chicken has announced a partnership with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in the fight to end cancer.
As part of the “Krunch for a Cure” program, Krispy Krunchy will donate 100% of its corporate profits from the sale of the Krispy Krunchy Chicken Sandwich to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS). The money will go toward funding research, helping families and saving lives. The program began May 13 and will run through June 28 in more than 2,400 of Krispy Krunchy’s locations. It will be the single largest partnership in LLS history.
Nestle Waters
To mark World Oceans Day on June 8, more than 5,000 employees and their families from Nestle Waters and Nestle local markets worked with local communities and nongovernmental organizations to remove plastic waste and debris from shorelines, rivers and local bodies of water. Nestle Waters has U.S. headquarters in Stamford, Conn.
Tastykake and Wonder
Through the “Deploy the Joy” campaign, snack brand Tastykake and bread brand Wonder will donate up to $1 million over the course of three years to the United Service Organizations (USO). The donation will be directed to USO programming that supports active duty, guard and reserve military members and their families.
Photograph courtesy of Tastykake and Wonder
Have a community-service announcement of your own to share? Send related news to Kristina Peters at kpeters@winsightmedia.com.