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McDonald's(R) Restaurants Provide Customers Additional Ways to Help With Hurricane Katrina Relief Efforts
Wednesday September 14, 11:00 am ET
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- McDonald's Operators' Association of Southern California (MOASC) and the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Southern California (RMHCSC) will convert the RMHCSC donation canisters found in McDonald's restaurants throughout Southern California for customers to help with Hurricane Katrina Relief efforts through Saturday, October 9, 2005.
Collection canisters in all McDonald's restaurant currently collect change in support of the programs and services of Ronald McDonald House Charities. For the next month, McDonald's restaurants nationwide will divert the canister collections from in-restaurant and drive-thru locations to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
"McDonald's and the Ronald McDonald House Charities have a long history of giving back to the communities in which we do business, said Clay Paschen III, president of MOASC. "Now is a time for us all to come together to help those in the gulf coast communities effected by Hurricane Katrina." |
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McDonald's Employees
If you are a McDonald’s Employee displaced
by Hurricane Katrina, please call the McDonald’s Service
Center at (877) 623-1955 to let us know where you are and
how we can help you.
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How to Donate
Please help the Hurricane Relief Efforts by visiting any
U.S. McDonald’s restaurants and donating through our
RMHC canister. 100% of the canister donations assist and aid
local and national relief efforts. |
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You should know that Owner/Operators and McOpCo personnel are working around
the clock to locate each and every affected McDonald's employee. Owner/Operators,
themselves in dire situations, are exhausting themselves taking care of
their people first. I can think of no better example of the spirit of
McDonald's.
The U.S. company is using all vehicles available, including emergency broadcast
networks, to try and reach our people to provide them with a phone number
to call -- to let us know where they are -- and to allow trained H.R. professionals
to begin providing whatever is needed as quickly as possible.
Now, perhaps like me, you are asking, "What can I do?" There is an answer.
The company has had for some time an arm of our charitable giving called,
"The McDonald's Family Charity." This exists solely for McDonald's employees
and RMHC to donate monies that go to McDonald's employees in need. Jim and
Mike have pledged to match -- dollar for dollar -- all monies donated to the
"Family Charity." Simply go to "AccessMCD" and you'll find all the information
necessary to donate.
I would also ask you to look for other ways your operations -- your restaurants
-- and your company employees can offer additional support. You are limited
only by your creativity as to the number of ways you can help and I can assure
you that every centavo and real is badly needed.
I know in my heart that, should something like this happen to any part of
Latin America, McDonald's would come to our aid. For now, the responsibility
-- and the opportunity -- is for US to help others and I'm confident that
Latin Americans will open their big hearts and find many ways to help.
You have my thanks -- and my personal assurance that these monies are going
to men and women just like you and me who are facing a very uncertain future.
Jose
"To be Latin America's favorite place and way to eat"
-Latin America Vision
Jose Armario
McDonald's Latin America
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Customers are encouraged to leave their loose change in the canisters
as they have always done to support RMHCSC, and the charity will offer all
funds collected to a number of disaster relief organizations supporting
the Hurricane Katrina Relief efforts. In addition, McDonald's Corporation
will match customer's donations dollar for dollar during this time period.
MOASC is comprised of more than 600 franchised and company-owned restaurants in the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura.
Barstow families take in Katrina survivors
By TRAVIS DUNN
Staff Writer
BARSTOW -- You wouldn't think that survivors from Hurricane Katrina would relocate to Barstow. But family exerts a powerful pull, strong enough to draw some of the recently homeless more than 1,800 miles to a new life in the High Desert.
The Desert Dispatch has identified at least 14 people from Louisiana who have moved here in the last week -- some for good, some for the near future, and all of them because they have family here. There are others here already, and more on the way.
Ed Dising and his family lived in Nero, La., in Saint Bernard Parish, just south of New Orleans, in one of the areas hardest-hit by Katrina. Their house was flooded to the roof. He doesn't plan to go back.
Dising and his wife, Grace, and their 10-year-old daughter, Asia Joy, are staying with Grace's parents -- Felino and Fe Espiritu. Asia Joy is already enrolled at Barstow Intermediate School, Dising said.
The Disings did not originally plan to move out here, but after a few days staying, for free, at the Best Western next to the Denny's restaurant where he used to work in Louisiana, they decided they had to move somewhere.
"We were just so confused. We didn't know what to do. All we knew is our house was underwater," he said. "We're planning to stay here, because it's a small neighborhood."
The Disings are currently looking for jobs and a place to live and already encountering problems. The Barstow Denny's isn't hiring, and rents here are much higher than what they're used to.
"It will be difficult adjusting," he said. "It's still kind of like a shock to us."
But ever since the hurricane, Dising said his family has been greeted with kindness. Somewhere in Arizona, the manager of a McDonald's restaurant gave the family boxes of food and water, and $20 for gas money.
"I nearly broke down crying in front of them," he said.
McDonalds says fewer than 100 stores remain closed
11 September 2005
12:36
Reuters News
English
(c) 2005 Reuters Limited
NEW YORK, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Fast-food chain McDonald's Corp. said that fewer than 100 of its restaurants remained closed following Hurricane Katrina, which ravaged the U.S. Gulf Coast on Aug. 29.
In a statement released on Saturday, Don Thompson, executive vice president and chief operations officer for McDonald's USA, said that number compared with 200 restaurants that were closed during the height of the hurricane.
He said some restaurants will require significant work to reopen or may have to be rebuilt.
"We are committed to providing jobs and reinvesting in these communities. We will reopen all of our Gulf Coast restaurants damaged by Katrina," he added.
On Friday, McDonald's said sales at its established hamburger restaurants rose 3.4 percent in August on strong U.S. demand for a new line of higher-priced chicken sandwiches.
The period, which ended Aug. 31, largely excluded the impact of Hurricane Katrina, which hit the Gulf Coast two days prior.
McDonald's Corporation said on Saturday it had increased its commitment to $5 million for ongoing hurricane Katrina disaster relief efforts.
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