LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Yum! Brands annual World Hunger Relief campaign raised more than $17.5 million in overall donations to date for the United Nations' World Food Programme and other hunger relief agencies.
More than 1.4 million employees, franchisees and their families across nearly 36,000 KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Long John Silver's and A&W Restaurants in more than 100 countries volunteered approximately five million volunteer hours to aid hunger relief efforts in communities worldwide.
Officials from WFP are determining specifics on how and where their funds will be used, but have already earmarked $1 million dollars to provide emergency aid to hurricane victims in Haiti. The Yum! Foundation is covering WFP's administrative fee so that funds collected from customers and employees will go directly toward feeding people.
Here are the highlights of this year's campaign:
- At the Clinton Global Initiative in September, Yum! chairman and CEO David Novak announced Yum!'s commitment to raise and donate $80 million over the next five years to help WFP and other agencies provide 200 million meals for hungry school children in developing countries; donate 20 million hours of hunger relief volunteer service in the communities in which it operates; donate $200 million worth of its prepared food to U.S. hunger agencies and use the company's marketing clout to generate awareness of the hunger problem.
- Yum! generated the equivalent of nearly $50 million in awareness of the hunger issue through television and print advertising, public service announcements, public relations, web-based communications and in-restaurant posters and signage. In addition, the company launched the www.fromhungertohope.com Web site and generated other online activity on Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, MySpace, ThinkMTV, YouTube and Flickr.
- Mariah Carey was featured in World Hunger Relief restaurant posters as Hunger Ambassador. Customers who donated to the campaign at one of Yum!'s restaurants received a free download of her song "Love Story" from her latest album E=MC2.
- Celebrities from around the world volunteered to help Yum! and its brands rally people to action, including working in some stores and volunteering at homeless shelters.
- Employee and franchisee worldwide volunteer efforts included working at hunger relief agencies, food banks, soup kitchens and fundraisers. Employees also organized car washes, auction sales, sponsored walks and bike races among other things to raise awareness and donations to support WFP and other hunger relief agencies.
Yum!'s first global hunger relief initiative in 2007 (World Hunger Relief Week) raised $16 million in one week for WFP and other hunger relief agencies.
