Community Service Spotlight

NATIONAL REPORT -- Giving back through community service efforts and charity donations is a positive force that keeps many retailers and suppliers of this industry moving ahead. On a regular basis, Convenience Store News highlights these philanthropic efforts in this special section. Here are the latest company spotlights:

Aloha Petroleum Ltd.
Aloha Petroleum Ltd. delivered holiday cheer to needy children in Hawaii by donating more than $6,500 to Toys for Tots Hawaii, which distributes new toys at Christmas to disadvantaged children in the Islands.

Aloha Petroleum set up donation collection canisters during the holiday season at Aloha Island Mart convenience stores on Oahu, Maui, Kauai, and the Big Island, and at select Shell locations. A total of $6,591 was collected for Toys for Tots Hawaii.

BP
BP Products North America Inc. and New York and New Jersey BP station owners launched a fundraising campaign in support of four local Paralympic Sport Clubs by selling window clings for $1 at participating BP stations through Feb. 28, 2013.

The proceeds will help fund new equipment, participant outreach, training for coaches and competitive athlete scholarships, to further the Paralympic Sport Clubs' mission of providing competitive and recreational sports opportunities for individuals with physical and visual disabilities.

All proceeds from the window clings being sold at participating BP stations will go to four local Paralympic Sport Clubs at the following locations:

• Children's Lightning Wheels (Mountainside, N.J.): offers sports for athletes ages 5-22 including track and field, swimming, archery, table tennis and powerlifting; hosts an annual swim meet and annual track and field meet and participates in regional and national sporting competitions.
   
• North Jersey Navigators (Bayonne, N.J.) offers adaptive, competitive and fun sports programs to help children and youth with disabilities increase their mobility skills, social skills, self-esteem, and activity levels. The team provides opportunities to participate and excel in several adaptive sports including track & field, swimming, archery, powerlifting, paratriathlon, table tennis and road racing.
   
• Row New York: empowers young people from New York City's under-resourced communities to build strength, gain confidence, and pursue excellence in all facets of their lives via year-round adaptive rowing programs for both youth and adults.
   
• City of New York Parks & Recreation: offers a variety of adaptive sports for youth and adults including track and field, aquatics, softball, basketball, sitting volleyball, and sled hockey.

BP branded marketers donated more than $300,000 in 2012 to 20 paralympic sport clubs in 19 areas around the country.

Meanwhile, in other BP news, the oil giant has given Mobile, Ala., schools $50,000 to host engineering camps for about 400 elementary school students this summer.

The grant has been awarded to the Mobile Area Education Foundation, which runs a program called EYE, or Engaging Youth through Engineering in 25 local schools. This is the second year that BP, which owned the Deepwater Horizon well that spewed millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, has given money to the program.

The money will be used to host four summer camps at elementary schools in different parts of the county. Each camp will last five days, from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m. and will include field trips related to workforce development. Students finishing fourth and fifth grades at the 25 participating schools will be eligible to attend.

Chevron U.S.A. Inc.
Through its Fuel Your School program, Chevron U.S.A. Inc. and DonorsChoose.org funded $4.49 million, benefitting local classroom projects at 1,733 K-12 public schools across the country and impacting a total of 697,904 students in 2012.

The purpose of the Fuel Your School program is to help support and improve critical education programming and materials, particularly in the STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering and math – to help prepare students for the growing number of technical jobs in the modern economy, including possible engineering positions at Chevron.

Since its inception in 2010, Fuel Your School has benefitted 8,915 classroom projects at 1,924 schools. The program has grown each year to support students in communities where the company has significant business operations. Chevron works with local communities, governments and non-profit organizations to help increase learning opportunities for students and support the development of the social and economic vitality of each community. Over the past three years, Chevron has contributed nearly $100 million for education in the United States.

CHS Inc.
The Tanks of Thanks program from Cenex, the CHS energy brand, rewarded more than 2,600 people with nearly $132,000 in free fuel in 2012.

This month kicks off the second year of the program, which recognizes and rewards people's good deeds with $50 Tanks of Thanks gift cards redeemable at any Cenex retail location. In the program's second year, CHS and Cenex retailers will continue sharing stories of people who are making a difference in their communities and rewarding their contributions with free fuel.

The Tanks of Thanks program encourages a person to nominate someone they know who deserves recognition for his or her simple acts of kindness or contributions to the community. Each nomination is shared on tanksofthanks.com and is entered for a chance to receive free fuel.

Cumberland Farms
The deadline for the Cumberland Farms Believe and Achieve Scholarship Program officially closed on Dec. 15, 2012, and more than 1,000 students from the high school class of 2013 have applied to win these scholarships.

Cumberland Farms’ scholarship program began six years ago and has already awarded nearly $800,000 in much-needed financial assistance to hundreds of college-bound high school students. The applications for 2013 scholarships are being individually reviewed now to determine whether they meet the eligibility guidelines that include living within a 30-mile radius of a Cumberland Farms store, showing financial need, and exhibiting outstanding academic performance throughout high school. Finalists in the increasingly competitive selection process will be selected in January, and 130 winners will be announced in spring 2013.

The program provides $1,000 scholarships to eligible graduating high school seniors across the Cumberland Farms service area, which includes the Northeast and Florida. The company will award Believe and Achieve Scholarships to 130 students across these regions, totaling $130,000. Believe and Achieve is open to students entering a full-time undergraduate course of study at an accredited college, university or vocational-technical school.

Past recipients have gone on to study at such prestigious institutions such as Brown University, Harvard University, Syracuse University, and College of the Holy Cross.

Since formalizing its Corporate Giving Program seven years ago, Cumberland Farms has donated millions of dollars in cash and products to causes that directly benefit thousands of young people through scholarships, direct-to-school programs, youth sports, local fundraising and more.

Englefield Oil Co.
Englefield Oil Co. and its BP supplier donated $10,000 to the Muskingum County Children Services through a grant provided by BP branded marketer, the Fueling Communities Program.

Located in Zanesville, Ohio, Muskingum County Children Services (MCCS) is a county government agency charged with investigating reports of abuse and neglect of children, providing intervention services to children and families with substantiated abuse or neglect, providing substitute care services as needed, and providing permanency for children with kinship providers and through adoption after court termination of parental rights.

E-Z Mart Inc.
Two junior high school teachers in the Little Rock, Ark., area were awarded E-Z Mart Education Grants.

One, a science teacher, applied for the grant in the amount of $999.85 to use in setting up a pre-medical program at the junior high level so that students can enter high school with basic knowledge to enter the medical program there.

The other, a 7th grade world history teacher, was granted $1,000 to use toward a "Jeopardy" interactive gaming system that she can use to bring fun to what she says students consider “one of the least favorite subjects in junior high.”

The purpose of the E-Z Mart Education Grant opportunity is to enhance the education process. Funds for the Educational Grant Program are made possible through proceeds from the Jim Yates Memorial Charity Golf Tournament hosted yearly by E-Z Mart.