FLORENCE – Parents of primary school age children are familiar with the lists teachers give out with required school supplies; notebooks, rulers, blunt-noes scissors, markers, etc. And parents know that those supplies can cost $20-30 per child. That’s where Southwire in The Florence Industrial Park come in. This past Saturday, area school children and their parents were invited up to the Southwire facility. There, they lined up by the hundreds to receive bags of grade-appropriate supplies free of charge, courtesy of Southwire.
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Taressa Foster
“This is our first such giveaway,” said Taressa Foster, H.R. manager at the electrical wire manufacturing plant. She added, “We plan on making this an annual event. We have over 40 of our employees here today, along with their family members, helping out. UNA also is here, and Walmart opticians are giving eye screenings.” This is part of Southwire’s “Project Gift”, which was set up as a community support organization. Foster says that Project Gift provides a number of programs throughout the year to benefit The Shoals.
Derrick Robinson, Kim Lovelace and Farley Bright of Shoals Radio Group.
Shoals Radio Group, which operates WLAY and WVNA, partnered with Southwire in Saturday’s event. Derrick Robinson, Shoals Radio Group’s Market Director of Sales, told The Quad-Cities Daily that Southwire does quite a lot of work for young area people. One of the most outstanding programs is their “12 For Life”. He said it is a way of keeping at-risk children in school, while at the same time allowing them to learn a job and earn money for their families.
