BIGGBY® COFFEE END S2018 WITH A LOOK BACK AT HOW THEY'VE GIVEN BIGG

Category: Promotions

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East Lansing, MI, December 31, 2018–As 2018 comes to a close, BIGGBY® COFFEE takes a moment to look back at the year and how they’ve had a share in helping those in the community build lives they love. From the Home Office, stores, co-ops, and the organization as a whole, BIGGBY® COFFEE has touched a lot of lives this year.

 

THE BIGGBY(R) COFFEE HOME OFFICE GIVES BIGG AND GIVES BACK

The BIGGBY® COFFEE Home Office Give BIGG program allows Home Office employees to work alongside the community where the BIGGBY® COFFEE Home Office headquarters is. The Give BIGG team worked with the Greater Lansing Food Bank (GLFB) in the past, but this year rather than collecting dry goods and money they assisted GLFB in distributing food. As a result, the BIGGBY® COFFEE Home Office had a wonderful opportunity to interact with the people in their community.

 

Alongside these, the Give BIGG team partnered with the City of East Lansing Parks and Recreation department. Together, they cleaned, cleared, and maintained the city’s parks. This monthly effort allowed the organization to help maintain the community that gave BIGGBY® COFFEE their start.

 

“…it was well worth the sweat to know that we made life a little easier, if only for a moment, for those whom life does not always come so easily,” Ian Sanwald, member of Give BIGG, said. “We’ve learned a lot…while sharing great coffee with other neighborhood volunteers,” Sanwald said.

 

The Home Office team is not the only way BIGGBY® COFFEE gave back this year. Many of the co-ops are hard at work in their communities, as well!

 

BIGGBY(R) COFFEE CO-OP’s HARD AT WORK

 

West Michigan BIGGBY(R) COFFEE

November 23–December 13, West Michigan BIGGBY® COFFEE partnered with local radio station 104.5 SNX, the Salvation Army, and Meijer for the second annual Stuff-A-Bus campaign. This campaign ran throughout all of West Michigan. Community members gathered together to stuff buses with toys for needy children this holiday season. This year they stuffed three buses, exceeding their goal of stuffing one more bus than in 2017.

 

During the month of October, participating West Michigan BIGGBY® COFFEE locations partnered with Hand2Hand, another West Michigan organization, collecting non-perishable food items for children to take home on weekends. Often sustained from school lunches during the week, this initiative provided nourishment to many children in the West Michigan community that go without proper nutrition outside of school hours. Money donations were also accepted on the Hand2Hand website in conjunction with BIGGBY®’s in-store efforts.

 

Aside from their efforts to help feed these children, West Michigan BIGGBY® COFFEE ran a Classroom of the Month series. Through this series, one lucky teacher won $500 to use in their classroom each month. Teachers were nominated through the BIGGBY® of West MI Facebook page, and were also featured in a commercial and/or segment on WOOD TV. The co-op saw great success with the Classroom of the Month series and plan to continue this initiative throughout 2019.

 

South East Michigan

On the southeast side of Michigan, the South East Michigan co-op has been hard at work giving back to their community as well. This October, the co-op led a BIGGBY® Cares campaign for breast cancer awareness that many stores throughout the co-op participated in. Stores donated a portion of their sales to Karmanos Cancer Institute to support breast cancer awareness, prevention, and early detection.

 

In addition, this September the co-op led a teacher appreciation campaign to show gratitude toward local teachers, giving teachers free “BIGGBY® Loves Teachers” mugs when they showed their school ID. This initiative caught wind and was picked up in many BIGGBY® COFFEE locations on a national level.

 

Central Eastern Michigan

In central eastern Michigan, the Central Eastern Michigan BIGGBY® COFFEE locations partnered with the Genesee Valley District Library system. This May through July, participating BIGGBY® COFFEE location offered bookmarks with free kids drink coupons to all Genesee Valley District Library locations to hand out to children participating in the summer reading program. The partnership resulted in 6,300 bookmarks, lots of free drinks, and helped encourage reading among children!

 

OUT-OF-STATE BIGGBY(R) COFFEE REACHING OUT

Out-of-state locations are also working hard to build the BIGGBY® COFFEE brand in lesser-known areas. In Champaign, Ill., BIGGBY® COFFEE donates 5% of their Friday sales to the University of Illinois Wounded Veteran Center. This donation helps the privately funded center support veterans to live and seek emotional and physical support while attending the university.

 

BIGGBY® COFFEE in Plainfield, Ind., has two ongoing programs. Not only do they regularly collect food for local food banks, but they partner with Hendrick’s County to help homeless and/or extremely poverty-stricken families find jobs and homes. The BIGGBY® COFFEE location collects items in need and takes them to the center once a month.

 

In the Charleston, South Carolina, area, BIGGBY® COFFEE has a number of charitable campaigns like Toys for Tots, a Halloween costume drive, and Teacher Appreciation Day. More notably, however, is the B-Kind campaign in which they partner with several elementary schools for an anti-bullying campaign. They provide furnished accolades, certificates, and free drink cards to students recognized on a weekly basis for promoting and being an example of kindness.

 

BIGGBY(R) COFFEE NATIONAL EFFORTS

On a national effort, BIGGBY® COFFEE’s second annual Giving is Getting campaign partnered with i understand and American Foundation of Suicide Prevention (AFSP) this September to bring awareness to the suicide epidemic. BIGGBY® COFFEE locations all around the nation gathered together to support this cause. Participating locations invited AFSP and i understand volunteers into their coffee shops to lend a listening ear to those contemplating suicidal thoughts or those who’ve been impacted by suicide. BIGGBY® COFFEE as a whole donated over $44,000 for the two groups. The dollars donated will support these organizations to help save lives and bring hope to those affected by suicide and mental illness.

 

About the efforts BIGGBY® COFFEE makes to support the communities they’re in, Sanwald said, “We are out in the community, working alongside our neighbors to make a difference. This isn’t just some place where we live and pay taxes—this is our community, our home. Let’s have a cup of coffee and get to work!”

 

Along with their charitable efforts, BIGGBY® COFFEE has a number of different fundraising options on a national level. For more information on fundraising with BIGGBY® COFFEE contact fundraising@biggby.com. BIGGBY® COFFEE also donates to local non-profit organizations on a monthly basis. For more information on requesting a donation, visit www.biggby.com.

 

BIGGBY® COFFEE strives to help support people in building lives they love, and through community outreach BIGGBY® COFFEE—as a national organization, and on a store- and co-op level—is determined to be an active, positive, encouraging presence within the communities they exist. Through these efforts, and many more at individual store levels, BIGGBY® COFFEE is hard at work, working to build up the people around them. Fanatics can expect to see some exciting initiatives in 2019!

 

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BIGGBY^® COFFEE, East Lansing, Mich.-based, was started with a single store on March 15, 1995. One year later, and on the cusp of opening a second location, Bob Fish and Michael McFall, on a handshake and $4,000, decided to franchise the concept. BIGGBY^® COFFEE’s cultural values of Make Friends, Have Fun, B Yourself, and Share Great Coffee help coffee-lovers and the coffee-curious alike benefit from a less pretentious and fun approach to the standard gourmet cafe paradigm. Besides connoisseur-worthy drinks with pronounceable names like Teddy Bear^® and Caramel Marvel^®, BIGGBY^® baristas provide a unique experience focused on brightening their customer’s day and supporting them in building a life they love. The “Big ‘B’” on the orange background caught on, and today BIGGBY^® COFFEE has 277 cafes open or under contract across 10 states including: Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Florida, Texas, and New Jersey. In 2018, BIGGBY^® launched an Area Representative Program and currently has 8 area representatives in 6 states.

If you would like more information about this topic, please contact press@biggby.com.