JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF THE SPACE COAST WINS $8,000 GRANT FROM SAM’S CLUB
JA drives the most online votes during month-long campaign.
[Melbourne, FL]—June 4, 2010—Junior Achievement of the Space Coast (JASC) today announced it has won an $8,000 grant from Sam’s Club as part of the Giving Made Simple campaign. The grant is part of $500,000 received by Junior Achievement USA and shared among its local offices who demonstrated the most effort in terms of driving votes during the month-long campaign. The grant will allow the youth development nonprofit to expand its entrepreneurship programs to reach 6,800 more middle grades and high school students nationally, including 160 in Brevard County. Junior Achievement empowers young people to own their future economic success by bringing relevancy to classroom education.
Through the Giving Made Simple campaign, which ran from April 8 to May 2, Sam’s Club members and associates voted to determine how $4 million in charitable giving would be distributed among eight nonprofit organizations. The organizations were divided into two categories—education and entrepreneurship—and only competed with the organizations in their categories. During the campaign, more than 125,000 Sam’s Club members and associates voted for their favorite organizations at samsclub.com/giving , and facebook.com/samsclub and during a one day in-club event nationwide. Junior Achievement drove the most online votes during the course of the campaign.
Additionally, Sam’s Club engaged members and the general public on Twitter by inviting them to show their support for their favorite organization during two special bonus voting days, and by giving everyone the chance to chat real-time with the eight organizations via an online Twitter party. Junior Achievement was able to rally its supporters to generate the most online votes throughout the contest and to post the most Tweets among the education nonprofits during each of the two special bonus voting days.
“Sam’s Club is pleased to award $500,000 to Junior Achievement and thanks all of the organizations who participated in Giving Made Simple, and our members and associates for helping to make this campaign such a success,” said Cindy Davis, Executive Vice President, Membership, Marketing and E-commerce at Sam’s Club. “We have all been inspired by the hard work and dedication of these organizations, and are excited to see the social and economic impact that these grants will have on the communities that Sam’s Club serves.”
Jack Kosakowski, president and chief executive officer of Junior Achievement USA, said, “I am extremely proud of the effort by our 126 U.S. local area offices—each one was able to effectively mobilize its network of donors, educators, volunteers and board members to drive votes for JA for the duration of the campaign.“
Tambre Clark, president of Junior Achievement of the Space Coast, added, “JA will use the $8,000 grant money from Sam’s Club to deliver JA’s entrepreneurship programs to Brevard County students—to ignite the spark of the entrepreneurial spirit and help prepare them for the workforce. Sam’s Club members and associates who voted for JA can feel confident about the positive impact of their votes. JA is very grateful to Sam’s Club for the opportunity to participate in Giving Made Simple.“
About Junior Achievement® (JA)
Junior Achievement is the world’s largest organization dedicated to inspiring and preparing young people to succeed in a global economy. Today, 126 individual area operations reach more than four million students in the United States, with an additional 5.7 million students served by operations in 122 other countries worldwide. For more information, visit www.ja.org .
About Junior Achievement of the Space Coast (JASC)
JA of the Space Coast is the Brevard organization dedicated to inspiring and preparing young people to succeed in a global economy. Through a dedicated volunteer network, JASC provides in-school and after-school programs for students which focus on three key content areas: work readiness, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy. Today, JASC reaches more than 8,000 students in grades K – 12 throughout Brevard County. For more information, visit www.jaspacecoast.org .
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