Summit County Executive Russell M. Pry to Distribute Merchandise Gift Cards to Area Families in Need

Summit County Executive Russell M. Pry announced his Department of Job & Family Services will distribute merchandise gift cards to needy families in areas targeted by the Summit 2010: A Quality of Life Project.

The cards were held in surplus after another giveaway in December, 2008. “Although we made several attempts to contact these families to let them know they were eligible for the cards, we just could not reach everyone, so some of the cards went unused,” County Executive Pry said today. “We want to get these distributed to families so that they could be put to good use as winter approaches. This is why we asked for the help of the schools in each of the identified areas.”

The JC Penney merchandise cards are in $150 dollar denominations and used only for clothing items such as shoes, boots, and school clothes. The Discount Drug Mart merchandise cards are in $50 dollar denominations and used exclusively for school supply items.

Assisting with distribution of the JC Penney and Discount Drug Mart cards are schools in the Akron Buchtel Cluster, East Barberton, Lakemore Village and Twinsburg Township. Each of the districts lies within the neighborhoods identified by the Summit 2010 project as being the most impoverished in Summit County.

The schools are working on the details of the distribution. Families must include at least one child of primary school age five (5) to seven (7) and family income must be no more than 200 per cent of the federal poverty level.

Families selected based on the criteria must also complete a Prevention, Retention, Contingency application and be pre-approved. In the Buchtel cluster Charisma Connection will handle the application process.

The distribution of the cards is planned for later this month.