HOUSTON -- Randalls here, a division of Safeway, Pleasanton, Calif., said it is donating foodstuffs and other items to victims of the recent flooding here caused by Tropical Storm Allison, as well as conducting a store-based fund-raising campaign.
Kathy Lussier, Randalls spokeswoman, told SN, "Immediately when the flooding reports began to come in, Randalls was on the scene providing a truckload of water and food to the American Red Cross.
"We put into place our in-store, scan-card fund-raiser program, which we have 'on hold' in case of community disasters."
In the scan-card program, customers purchase $1 or $5 cards, the donation is added to their total grocery bill and the shoppers keep the cards as a receipt. Lussier said 100% of the donations will go toward aiding the victims.
"Usually, we focus the campaign on the market affected by the disaster, but in this case, we had customers in Austin and the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex who wanted to help people in Houston," she said.
Lussier added that parent company Safeway has donated water and is providing $10,000 in Randalls gift certificates to a flood relief effort being run through local churches.
Randalls also donated several pallets of soda for the Salvation Army canteens; loaves of bread to help feed patients at St. Joseph's Hospital; and various items to the Houston Food Bank.
Lussier said other food industry companies have been involved in relief efforts. "Our friends at Reddi Ice and Blue Bell Creameries are to be thanked for coming to the aid of the Salvation Army so promptly, providing thousands of pounds of ice and helping to transport frozen items for the canteens," she said.
"We also helped Baylor College of Medicine find large quantities of dry ice through our partners at Air Gas," she added. "Baylor had years of critical, ground-breaking research at risk of thawing."
