It's Official: AMBUCS Awarded $50,000 Pepsi Refresh Grant

After a month-long online voting campaign, National AMBUCS, Inc. was officially recognized today as the winner of a $50,000 Pepsi Refresh grant.

That money will be used to provide new AmTryke therapeutic tricycles to 100 individuals with disabilities who are currently on the AMBUCS national wish list.

“This campaign was a great experience for our organization, as we sought to bring smiles to the faces of some very well-deserving children,” said AMBUCS National Big Hat Club President Gary Miles. Miles and his brother Kip helped discover the grant opportunity for AMBUCS and were two of the most vocal supporters during the entire month-long campaign

As part of a new community service initiative, Pepsi is awarding $20 million in grants this year to support ideas that “refresh the world and lead to positive change.”  Each month, the soft drink maker will distribute a total of $1.3 million in grants, spread out between four different amount categories: two $250,000 grants, 10 $50,000 grants, 10 $25,000 grants, and 10 $5,000 grants.

AMBUCS chose to compete this April in the $50,000 category and thus had to finish in the top ten out of more than 360 other similar entries to win the grant.

All approved ideas were ranked by the public, as people could visit Refresheverything.com and vote for projects that they wanted to see become a reality. A person could vote up to 10 times per day, but each vote had to be for a different idea.

To attract voters, AMBUCS launched a first-of-its kind marketing campaign which capitalized on nearly all of the organization’s communication tools. A special webpage was created on ambucs.org to explain how to voting process worked. A Pepsi can button was placed prominently on the website homepage which linked voters directly to AMBUCS grant campaign page. The AMBUCS Resource Center staff also sent out regular broadcast emails, direct mailings and made daily postings on its facebook and twitter pages. Some AMBUCS members even created videos on youtube.com that promoting the voting campaign, and while other chapters ran newspaper ads in their local papers.

AMBUCS eventually finished as the fourth highest vote-getter in the $50,000 category.
 
“Yes, it was nerve-racking at times, but shoulders together we were able to persevere and keep our eye on the prize,” Miles said. “Words cannot express just how proud I am to be an Ambuc today.”