Campbell Soup Employees Make a Difference During Annual Service Week

Make a Difference Week is Campbell's annual week of volunteer service.  Campbell has been participating in National Make a Difference Day for more than 25 years.  Five years ago, Campbell decided to turn Make a Difference Day into Make a Difference Week when a record number of volunteers sought turn-key opportunities to volunteer during the work day.  Since that time, participation in the service week has doubled each year with a record number of employees expected to participate in 2011.

Employees from across the U.S. will be participating in more than 70 volunteer projects.  Most projects will be focused on Campbell's commitment reducing hunger and childhood obesity in our hometown communities.  In Camden, NJ, Campbell's hometown and birthplace, more than 1,200 employees - approximately 83% of the employee population at this site - will be participating in activities such as gleaning excess produce for donation from NJ farms, sorting and boxing food at the Food Bank of South Jersey and Philabundance in Philadelphia, packing lunches for the homeless with the Cathedral Kitchen and New Life Community Development Center, running physical activity programming with the Y for Camden youth and much more.

In Norwalk, Conn., home of Pepperidge Farm headquarters, employees will be renovating a new warehouse space for Christian Community Action, a local emergency food pantry.  In Toronto, Canada, employees of Campbell Canada will be participating in a food sort with the Daily Bread Food Bank and hosting healthy cooking demonstrations for a local women's shelter. 

Through a partnership with Feeding America, employees at ten manufacturing sites throughout the U.S. will be participating in the Backpack Program.  Through this initiative, employees will be filling up empty bags with a weekend's worth of nutritious, sustaining food for youth in need.  These youth participate in the National School Lunch program during the school week, but do not know where their next meal is coming from on the weekend.  Sites in Napoleon, OH, Bloomfield, Conn., Aiken, SC, Lakeland, FL, Downer's Grove, IL, and more will be filling more than 2,000 backpacks for distribution through Feeding America's network of food banks.

All together, Campbell employee volunteer efforts during Make a Difference Week will result in more than 3,600 service hours and approximately $50,000 in grants to partner non-profits through the Campbell Soup Foundation's Dollars for Doers program.