Page 25 - PowerPoint Presentation

Park Ridge Jewel Food Drive Tops Corporate

Collections in 2017

By Anne Lunde, Journal & Topics Newspaper

The generosity of its Park Ridge area customers during the holiday season helped the Jewel -Osco store at 481 Busse Hwy. collect
enough money to fund 1,091 Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners for area needy families.
The grand total was $67,727, more than any of the other 186 Jewel stores, and the most collected at the approximately 2,300
stores across the country owned by Albertson’s, Jewel’s parent company.
The local store’s Front End Manager, Bennie Velazquez, is still stunned and thankful to all the donors, and very proud of his
staff, especially his cashiers, whom he credits with the success of the fund drive.
They knew soon after the holidays that they had surpassed the other Jewels, but the news from Albertson’s only arrived
recently.
Funds were raised from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24. Dinners — turkey for Thanksgiving and ham for Christmas — were then assembled by
the store, valued about $65 each, and delivered to various area food banks.
They supplied the Maine Township Food Pantry and Center of Concern’s clients. They sent dinners to Maryville Academy, the
Harbor, Northwest Compass, Safe Haven and New Life Community Church. The remainder went to the Greater Chicago Food
Pantry. They had offered meals to Catholic Charities, which couldn’t store the food this year.
Velazquez was assigned to the Park Ridge store about three years ago.
They raised $21,000 his first year, which seemed impressive. In 2016 they boosted that to $31,000.
So, in 2017, he set a goal of $41,000, a challenge, but more than that?
“Never in my wildest dreams,” did he expect to top that, he said.
He decided to give the cashiers some incentives to boost donations.
“Star Wars, the Last Jedi” was about to open for the holiday season. He offered a $10 gift card to AMC movie theaters to see the
film to whoever collected the most one day.
There were other gift cards and $5 coupons to make it exciting and motivating for the 23 cashiers.
Twenty collected at least $1,000 each. Of 6,000 cashiers at Jewel stores, six from the local store were in the top 10, and one here
collected about $9,000, he said.
“My team was so successful because they were relentless but not aggressive. They’re a great team,” Velazquez said.
Customers got into the spirit as well. Some gave regular amounts every time they shopped. The store rounded the dinner price
to $50 and customers helped during many visits.
When Velazquez would get on the loudspeaker to announce they were close to a significant mark — only so much to reach
$50,000, for example — someone in the store would donate the difference, he explained.
Velazquez says his “trophy” was seeing the people loading the dinners into the vans.
“The people here have heart. I know (in 23 years with Jewel) I’ve never been hugged so much.”
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