Rent-to-own News - Cleek's/Aaron's raises food donations for local schoolchildren

L to R: Tony Trimble (Sales Manager), Paul Olson (Product Tech), John Nissen (General Manager), Tiffanie Nichter (Customer Service Rep), Ciera Cheatum (Manager Trainee), and Amanda Cloud (Customer Account Manager).

Cleek's/Aaron's during the months of September and October promoted a "peanut butter drive" in its seven stores and encouraged customers, employees, and the community to participate.

The stores rallied to raise a total of 700 pounds of peanut butter for The Food Bank of Central and Northeast Missouri which coordinates the "Buddy Pack" program -- a program that supplies food for children to take home in their backpacks during holiday breaks and weekends.

"Your business is only as healthy as the communities it serves," said Cleek's/Aaron's owner John Cleek Jr. "That's one reason we liked this program so much and what they are doing for less fortunate children in Missouri. We are especially proud of our associate members and customers who stepped up and really got behind this thing in a big way."

Peanut butter is the most expensive item in the Buddy Packs so that's why Cleeks/Aaron's focused on that item.
 
Cleek's/ Aaron's also provided an incentive to people who donated the peanut butter. Each donor filled out a registration slip to win a 42" Plasma TV for  each jar of peanut butter donated. The winner of the 42" Plasma TV was Wendy Hendrix from the Marshall store.
 
Around 55,000 students in The Food Bank’s service area qualify for free and reduced-priced school meals. For many of them, breakfast and lunch at school offer the only source of reliable nutrition and they are at risk of hunger over the weekend.

To alleviate this risk, The Food Bank partners with elementary schools in each of the 32 counties it serves to provide Buddy Packs to school children. Buddy Packs are backpacks filled with kid-friendly, nutritious food that students take home over the weekend or holiday periods to supplement their meals when there is not enough for them to eat at home.

After the weekend, the kids bring their empty Buddy Pack back to school to be refilled by local volunteers. The program continues week after week throughout the school year or as needed.

During the 2010-11 school-year, the Buddy Pack program helped feed around 6,500 children each week, up from 4,200 in 2009-2010. The Food Bank anticipates adding another 2,000 children to the program in 2011-2012.

More information here.