To keep their cars running, Enterprise Rent-A-Car knows how important it is to keep the gas tanks filled. After all, their motto is "Because when you have a full tank anything is possible." But the company also knows how important it is to feed the empty stomachs of the hungry and fill those tanks.
To celebrate their 60th anniversary, Enterprise Rent-A-Car pledged to donate $60 million in six years to local food banks across the country, as well as to Feeding America, Food Banks Canada, and the Global FoodBanking Network.
Their most recent Foundation donation was $50,000 to the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina, which serves children and adults through more than 800 partner agencies such as soup kitchens, food pantries, and shelters, and distributed more than 64.4 million pounds of food and non-food essentials just in 2015-16.
Statistics show that 1 in 8 Americans may not have enough to eat and 1 in 6 children is hungry.
"Many times, hunger is invisible to us. We often don't see the signs that someone might be food-insecure or think about the ripple effects of hunger," said Enterprise Rent-A-Car Foundation Vice President and Executive Director Carolyn Kindle Betz.
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The Enterprise Rent-A-Car Foundation will donate $10 million per year for six years, with $2.5 million in annual donations going to Feeding America®, which helps to fight hunger among seniors and children, and $1.5 million to Food Banks Canada to support operations and infrastructure in food banks across Canada. Another $1 million each year will go to The Global FoodBanking Network to expand the work of food banks around the world where Enterprise has operations, including in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany and Spain.
"One in four people around the world suffer from malnutrition, and millions of these people can be reached through food banking," said Lisa Moon, President and CEO of GFN in a release. "GFN's partnership with Enterprise will help expand food banks' capacity to reach more people in need, while reducing food waste. Enterprise's support will help break barriers that keep people from achieving their full potential and leading healthy, productive lives."
Another $5 million will be distributed annually to other local food banks and pantries like Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina that are served by Enterprise. The St. Louis Area Foodbank, which distributes food to hundreds of food pantries, homeless shelters and senior citizen organizations in Missouri and Illinois, will also receive donations from Enterprise.
"The impact locally from Enterprise's donation will be tremendous for us," said the Foodbank's president and CEO Frank Finnegan in an interview. "The funds that we get through this program, we'll use to bring in more fresh fruit and vegetables to the area."
The owner of Enterprise, Jack Taylor, started the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Foundation back in 1982 as a way to give back to the communities that drove Enterprise's growth and success. For their 50th anniversary they pledged to plant one million trees per year for 50 years. The Foundation and the family has since contributed more than $1 billion to thousands of local non-profits and that will continue even after Taylor's death last year.
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