Axel Johnson Inc. and its operating companies are committed to the well-being of the communities in which its employees live and work. The company has a longstanding tradition of giving back at the local level. AJI employees are active participants in numerous charitable organizations, performing a variety of volunteer and fundraising efforts.
Maine Center for Creativity
Through collaboration with the Maine Center for Creativity, a non-profit dedicated to the arts and creative industries, sixteen tanks at Sprague Energy’s South Portland tank farm are in the process of being transformed into the largest public art display in the world. Jaime Gili, a Venezuela-born artist living in London, was selected from among 500 international applicants to design this effort, winning a $20,000 endorsement in the Center’s Art All Around™ international competition.
Advocating for Clean Water
Axel Johnson Inc. has teamed up with adventurer and safe water activist Katie Spotz to help sponsor her Schools for Water campaign. Millions of children in Africa spend their day walking hours to collect water instead of going to school. With the Schools for Water campaign, Katie Spotz has signed up ten schools in Northeast Ohio to help ten schools in Kenya gain access to safe water. The students have raised over $75,000 to date and provided clean water to over 7,500 students.
Improving Water Supply in Developing Countries
In April 2010, Marianna Novellino, Senior Process Engineer for Parkson Corp., joined forces with Water For People, an international non-profit development organization, to conduct over 400 water surveys in the district of Ilama in Santa Barbara, Northern Hondurus. The surveys will be used to evaluate and make improvements to community water supply systems. Parkson has a long-term relationship with Water For People, which has been working in Honduran communities since 1993 to help people obtain safe drinking water and sanitation services and to provide hygiene education.
Assistance for At-Risk Children
For many years, Axel Johnson Inc. has provided substantial financial support to the World Childhood Foundation, which focuses on rescuing the world’s most vulnerable children – primarily young girls –from abusive and exploitative circumstances. The World Childhood Foundation’s primary target groups are street children, children living in institutions, young mothers and sexually abused children.