Con-way Portland Employees Support Local Charities With Holiday Giving Campaign

PORTLAND, Ore., Dec. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Local seniors, domestic abuse victims and homeless families are discovering that the holiday season truly can be a time to rejoice, thanks to the charitable efforts of hundreds of employees from Con-way's administrative and technology services campus in Northwest Portland.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060418/SFTU007LOGO )

This week, the freight transportation and logistics company's Portland workforce is putting the finishing touches on a multi-faceted campaign to provide donations of gifts, food, clothing, living supplies and other household items for some of Portland's most needy residents.

Con-way's Portland campus, which employs 950 people, selected four local charitable organizations for the 2006 holiday campaign. The organizations and their programs were:

-- SnowCAP (http://www.snowcap.org/), which provides rent and utility assistance for low-income households. The organization received the proceeds from a silent auction held at the company's offices where Con-way employees bid on over 150 items, such as jewelry, knitted items, baked goods, blown glass, ornaments and wooden bowls. Most of the auction items were made by employees, with some donated by local merchants. The auction raised nearly $2,000 in contributions for SnowCAP. -- Be a Santa for a Senior, sponsored by Home Instead Senior Care (http://www.homeinstead.com/). For this program, Con-way employees accepted the challenge of providing gifts and companionship for nearly 350 local senior citizens who are living alone and are not likely to have any family support for the holiday. Gifts are being collected this week with volunteers holding a gift wrapping party this Friday, Dec. 15. In some cases, Con-way employees also are visiting local senior centers to participate in holiday celebrations. -- Bradley Angle House (http://www.bradleyangle.org/), a local women's domestic violence shelter. For this organization, Con-way employees adopted eight families, each with a minimum of three individuals per household. Employees pooled their resources to fulfill a "wish list" for each overall family, as well as for each individual family member. The effort will provide children with holiday gifts and the families with goods and supplies to help them reestablish new independent living arrangements. -- Family Assistance Foundation (http://www.familyassistancefoundation.com/), which provides subsidized housing enabling homeless families to move from shelters into private apartments. Con-way employees adopted 18 families, providing each with Christmas gifts as well as household supplies and goods to help them get established in their new residences.

On Monday morning Dec. 18th, a Con-way Freight truck will arrive at the Portland offices to load up the donated gifts for Bradley Angle House and the Family Assistance Foundation, and deliver them to the respective agencies.

The effort was coordinated by Karen Simmons, human resources manager for Con-way's Portland campus, who along with a team of 12 employees identified the organizations and managed the giving programs for each agency. "We had a tremendous turnout from our employees for this year's campaign," said Simmons. "All our departments really got into the spirit and put together a great effort to make the campaign a success. These are such needy organizations, it's great to be able to give back to our community and support these local groups who do such terrific work to help take care of those less fortunate."

Con-way Inc. is a $ 4.2 billion freight transportation and logistics company with businesses in less-than-truckload and full truckload freight services, truckload brokerage, contract logistics, warehousing, supply chain management and trailer manufacturing. Portland is the site of the company's administrative support and information technology services center. For more about Con-way and its operations, visit http://www.con-way.com/ .