Panera Bread Holiday Drive Serves Riverfront Center

A Holiday Gift Drive at Panera Breads in Groton and Waterford made the holidays brighter for children and families served by the Riverfront Children’s Center in Groton, Connecticut as more than 60 presents were collected for the organization by Panera customers and employees. 

For the fourth consecutive year, customers participated in the Holiday Gift Drive by simply going to the counter at their local Panera, selecting a gift tag with a specific child’s first name on it, and then purchasing the “wish list” items noted.  Each gift tag is special with a different child, age and list of gifts on it.  Gifts were then brought back to the respective cafes by participating customers in a gift bag with the gift tag attached.

The Riverfront Children’s Center, located at 476 Thames Street in Groton, is a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide high quality, affordable childcare and educational services while comprehensively nurturing the unique needs of children and their families. The programs serves children ages 3 months through 12 years whose parents or guardians are working, in school or attending training programs in Southeastern, CT.  For more information on the Center, please call (860) 445-8151 or visit www.riverfrontchildren.org.

Other Connecticut bakery-cafes and their non-profit partners were as follows:  Lisbon, CT is working with the United Community & Family Services in Jewett City, CT; Bristol, Canton, Farmington, Hartford, Newington and Wethersfield, CT are participating with Place of Grace based in Hartford, CT; bakery-cafes in Glastonbury, Manchester (Deming Street) and Manchester (Shoppes at Buckland Hills), CT are working with the ECHN Family Development Center in Manchester; West Hartford, CT is participating with The Bridge Family Center in West Hartford; and Enfield, CT is teaming up with The Enfield Food Shelf.

Panera Bread/Howley Bread Group also recently announced a partnership with Feeding America® where all donations collected through its cafes’ ongoing Panera Cares Community Breadbox™ Program will go directly to Feeding America member food banks.  This Program gives customers the opportunity to donate money at the register to support the local member food banks’ efforts to provide nutritious food to residents in need.  This new partnership is part of Panera Bread’s ongoing effort to combat the problem of hunger in America.  For years, Panera Bread/Howley Bread Group has donated all unsold bread and baked goods each night to local food pantries and other organizations that provide hunger relief through its Day-End Dough-Nation™ program. Collectively, the Panera Bread bakery-cafes across the country donated approximately $100 million worth of retail bread and baked goods in 2012 making the per cafe average annual bread donation approximately $146,000.