PepsiCo funding 16 schools in 15 Chinese cities

Katty Lam, president of PepsiCo Greater China Region Foods OpCo, presenting certificates to PepsiCo GCR volunteers at a ceremony. [Provided to China Daily]

Beverage and food giant PepsiCo Greater China Region is financing Chinese schools in the country's remote areas.

As of the end of 2011, PepsiCo had provided funding for 16 schools in 15 Chinese cities, including Beijing, Jinan, Chongqing, Nanchang, Changchun, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Xi'an, Nanjing, Heyuan, Wuhan, Chengdu and Zhengzhou, benefiting 16,200 students in total, including 3,500 PepsiCo Love Scholarship beneficiaries.

Up to 2012, PepsiCo GCR had invested more than 4 million yuan ($629,921) in the aforementioned two education programs, covering 26 schools of migrant workers' children and rural schools in several Chinese provinces and municipalities with benefits shared by more than 20,000 primary and secondary school students across the country.

On Sept 7, PepsiCo donated 200,000 yuan to several outstanding students and teachers in Beijing to help improve the educational environment and boost the education development of the local community.

While providing sustained funding for these education support programs, PepsiCo Foundation and PepsiCo GCR are also actively engaged in other public welfare programs, including Mother Water Cellar, an 11-year project aimed at providing safe drinking water for regions suffering water shortages in central and western China, charity campaigns initiated by the associates of PepsiCo factories and farms across the country that directly benefit local communities and emergency assistance and support offered by the company and associates in the wake of natural disasters.

To date, public welfare donations made by PepsiCo Foundation, PepsiCo GCR and PepsiCo associates in China have already exceeded 75 million yuan.

PepsiCo Greater China Region built a new library in Wulanhua town No 6 Primary School in Siziwang Banner, Inner Mongolia, that opened this month.

It confirmed the company's pledge to generate healthy financial returns while giving back to the communities that it serves.

The new library, under the PepsiCo Library program, gives the school access to computers, book shelves, book cabinets, desks and chairs and other learning facilities. PepsiCo GCR has handed over more than 3,000 new books and its associates have donated more than 1,000 to the library .

The PepsiCo Library program is part of PepsiCo's "Performance with Purposes" strategy, which aims to profit from and give back to communities.

Since its launch in 2007, the program has been committed to building PepsiCo libraries for schools in the countryside around PepsiCo farms, donating books, desks, chairs and other library facilities and offering scholarships for school students.

To date, PepsiCo and its Greater China Region associateshave already invested nearly 1.9 million yuan in this endeavor, building a total of 10 PepsiCo libraries in Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Guangxi, Shandong, Guangdong, Hubei and Gansu. More than 4,500 students have benefited.

"Siziwang Banner is a shining pearl on the Inner Mongolia prairie with a time-honored history. I feel deeply honored to be able to represent PepsiCo here in declaring the inauguration of the PepsiCo library and witnessing the small contribution PepsiCo has made to the education development on this grand prairie," said Katty Lam, president of PepsiCo GCR Foods OpCo.

Wulanhua town No 6 Primary School is the 10th school sponsored by the PepsiCo Library program. As the teachers and students began their new semester, PepsiCo GCR specially organized a volunteer campaign for its associates to get personally involved in the public welfare program.

During the volunteer campaign, PepsiCo volunteers from across the country gathered at the No 6 primary school to help with the set-up of the library, joining reading games, holding "mini Olympics" and other activities with the students and teachers.

The active participation of PepsiCo associates has broadened the school curriculum and injected new impetus to the teaching activities.

"PepsiCo is one of the most successful consumer goods companies in the world. Its products are known and liked by hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers. On behalf of the teachers and students of the school, I want to thank PepsiCo for the support and assistance offered to us as we enter this new semester," said Wu Ying, principal of the school..

"I also want to thank PepsiCo volunteers for their efforts in improving our teaching curriculum and enriching the extracurricular activities of the students. I am confident that under the motivation of PepsiCo, our students will make more dedicated efforts and study even harder for the prosperity of their homeland on this grand prairie."

In addition to the PepsiCo Library, the maker of Pepsi Cola and 7Up is sponsoring another education support program for the children of migrant workers called PepsiCo Better Tomorrow. Since the start of the program in 2008, PepsiCo has followed a region-by-region and step-by-step approach to improve the education environment of migrant workers' children by offering scholarships, building libraries and providing sports equipment and other material support for their schools.

liwoke@chinadaily.com.cn