August 17, 2022 – ERLANGER, Kentucky: Perfetti Van Melle, the home of Airheads and Mentos candy, gum, and mints in the U.S., is continuing its annual tradition of a day of service by its 550+ employees. This year, not knowing what challenges COVID-19 would bring next, the company got creative to find a more flexible approach to its Community Day. It created multiple smaller group volunteer days in August/September, helping several local organizations, including Sweet Cheeks Diaper Bank, Ronald McDonald House Cincinnati and Matthew 25: Ministries.
This week’s events with Sweet Cheeks Diaper Bank will have Perfetti Van Melle Erlanger manufacturing and operations employees taking time out of their work shifts making Airheads and bottling Mentos gum, to wrap and prepare disposable diaper packs for distribution to local low-income families. While Perfetti Van Melle does other community service and supports local charities year-round, their annual Community Day is a time for their teams to give back to the community together and bond with each other after a long pandemic distancing!
Sylvia Buxton, President & CEO of Perfetti Van Melle North America Buxton said, “while the pandemic made it challenging to confidently plan for big all-hands events, our business has also grown a lot, creating new jobs, even during the pandemic. It’s pushed us to find a new way to get an even larger group of employees involved in serving our community. Trying a ‘season of service’ approach this year, each part of our business had the flexibility to decide on a community project that fit their team size, their shifts — even middle of the night shifts — AND fit our company goal of helping kids and families in our local area.”
Megan Fischer, CEO & Founder of Sweet Cheeks Diaper Bank said, “We have been blown away by the support of Perfetti’s employees this month. Early COVID restrictions showed us just how critical our volunteers are, and Perfetti employees have allowed us to work ahead so we have more stability for our partner agencies and the families we serve. We’re so grateful to Perfetti for not only believing in our mission to end diaper need, but also for working with us to create creative solutions to volunteering on-site at their facility.”
The result? In August and September, Perfetti is investing time and dollars in its employees and local charities to make a real community impact.
2022 Community Day – Season of Service — Facts & figures include:
- 550+ volunteers from Perfetti Van Melle, contributing 2,400+ hours over 13 project days in August and September.
- Donations of ~$70,000 invested by Perfetti in these 3 charities to activate the events.
- Projects with local organizations: Sweet Cheeks Diaper Bank, Ronald McDonald House of Greater Cincinnati, and Matthew 25: Ministries.
- Sweet Cheeks: Among the 5 Perfetti employee teams doing a Sweet Cheeks project for Community Day, the organization estimates over 500,0000 diapers will be wrapped and processed.
- Pre-pandemic Community Day:
- Past Perfetti Van Melle Community Day projects have shut down production and business on one day for all employees to do projects like building two accessible playgrounds (NKY/Cincinnati), taking over The Giving Fields, and beautifying inner city schools/neighborhoods with Keep Cincinnati Beautiful/CPS.
- In 2020 and 2021 because of COVID, instead of hands-on Community Day projects, the company made significant financial donations to support United Way’s Digital Equity internet project for students learning remotely and its first College Success Kits project for first gen NKY college-bound students.
About Perfetti Van Melle:
Perfetti Van Melle USA, Inc., is part of the Netherlands-based Perfetti Van Melle Group B.V., one of the world’s largest candy manufacturers. With well-known brands in the U.S. such as Airheads, Mentos, Fruit-tella and Chupa Chups, Perfetti Van Melle operates a factory, office and distribution center in Erlanger, KY, plus a national sales team, employing more than 550 people. The company was named as a 2021 and 2022 NKY Best Workplace by NKY Magazine and has been named a Community Champion Business Impact Award finalist for several consecutive years by the NKY Chamber of Commerce. Learn more at perfettivanmelleus.com.
Perfetti Van Melle is continuing to grow and hire in the Tri-State for many types of roles from production operations and supervisor roles to office-based roles. Visit jobs.perfettivanmelle.com.
About Sweet Cheeks Diaper Bank:
Sweet Cheeks Diaper Bank partners with local social service agencies to provide diapers to low-income families while raising awareness of the basic health need for diapers. Sweet Cheeks’ vision is to eliminate the existence of diaper need in the Cincinnati community, so ALL babies have the chance to be healthy, happy and safe. Visit sweetcheeksdiaperbank.org for more information.
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