Walmart and Sam's Club Associates Could Give South Carolina's Children a BIG Win

COLUMBIA, SC - June 27, 2011 - The Children's Trust of South Carolina (CTSC) is pleased to announce it has been selected as one of five South Carolina nonprofit organizations to compete in the Walmart Associate Choice Program. Now through August 6, 2011, every Walmart and Sam's Club associate in every state across the country will use their employee benefits website (www.mywalmart.com) to vote for the local charitable causes most important to them. The organization winning the most votes for their state receives a $100,000 grant.

Sue Williams, CEO of CTSC sees this as the perfect opportunity for Walmart's South Carolina associates to invest in the well-being of the state's children. She states, "We are honored to have been selected to compete for this opportunity. The Walmart Foundation is giving its associates a chance to make a tremendous difference in their local communities; and in the case of associates in South Carolina, they are being given the opportunity to ensure all of our state's children have a safe place to sleep."

If selected as the Walmart Associate Choice winner for the state of South Carolina, CTSC plans to use the funding to expand the initiatives of one of its newest programs:  Cribs for Kids® South Carolina, a safe-sleep education program working to reduce the risk of infant injury and death due to unsafe sleeping environments. "South Carolina ranks 45th in the nation for overall child well-being, and accidental suffocation is the leading cause of unintentional injury death among infants in the United States," informs Williams. She adds, "Over the past decade, hundreds of South Carolina's children, age 0-1 year, have suffered death due to suffocation because of improper sleeping environments. Especially heartbreaking is that in many cases, new parents were not provided the knowledge or the proper equipment to protect their children."

The Cribs for Kids® program, operates off the guiding principle behind all CTSC programs and initiatives - equipping South Carolina's families with the education and tools they need to strengthen their lives and the lives of their children. The Cribs for Kids® program does this by providing invaluable safe-sleep educational training to parents and grandparents through which they learn important tactics to protect their infants. Upon completion of this training, a Graco Pack 'n Play is provided at no cost to families who could not otherwise afford a safe place for their infants to sleep. The Cribs for Kids® program has the potential to help South Carolina families prevent the unnecessary and tragic deaths of the state's children.

CTSC leads its Cribs for Kids® initiative through the organization's Safe Kids South Carolina program. "Through the concept of encouraging parents to practice child safety At Home, At Play and On the Way, our Safe Kids South Carolina program has enabled us to educate parents on a variety of child safety issues," states Williams. "Now, we need to ensure that every baby in our state has a safe place to sleep. We're excited that South Carolina's Walmart and Sam's Club associates have the opportunity to help us accomplish this goal," asserts Williams.

 

The Children's Trust of South Carolina is the only statewide non-profit organization committed to the prevention of child abuse and neglect by promoting healthy, nurturing relationships between children and adults. Our vision is that every child will grow up in a safe, loving and stable environment. To learn more about The Children's Trust, please visit our website at www.scchildren.org.