Bridgestone Americas Gives Mercy House Residents a Christmas to Remember

ONTARIO, CA, December 21, 2012 (Press-News.org) To celebrate the season of giving, employees at Bridgestone Americas Tire Operation's (Bridgestone Americas) Ontario, CA distribution center provided residents of Mercy House's homeless transitional shelter with a festive holiday party and Christmas gifts for the children. In its 4th year as an annual tradition of partnering with Mercy House, Bridgestone Americas rallied the support of employees in their Shipping and Receiving, Administrative, and Management Departments to "adopt" Mercy House families and purchase Christmas gifts for the children. The culmination of this over 6-month process was a wonderful holiday party set at the Assisi House Shelter, which provides housing and supportive services for homeless men and women as well as single mothers and their children. Residents were treated with a barbeque and activities for the children including face painting, hair styling, cookie decorating and a jump house. New to this year's event was the opportunity for the Assisi House mothers to "shop" for their children's toys amongst the donated items. Being able to pick out the toys that best suited their children's personalities gave the mothers a sense of hope ---that their children would have the Christmas they thought they wouldn't be able to have.

Over 50 employees and their own families participated in the toy drive and holiday party.

"For so many in our communities the holidays can be a very difficult time," said Jackie Rodriguez, Human Resource Manager, Bridgestone Americas. "We're so glad we could play a small part in making this Christmas a little brighter for the families of Mercy House."

Mercy House and their staff and residents were overjoyed by the generosity of the Bridgestone Americas employees as they participated in the day's activities together.

"Words cannot express our gratitude to Bridgestone Americas for putting this together for us year after year," said Judy Saul, Mercy House Program Director, "to see the smiles on our kid's and mother's faces, after all they might have been through this past year, is a blessing".

About Mercy House:

Mercy House is a non-profit 501 (c) (3) organization that provides housing and comprehensive supportive services for some of the most vulnerable homeless populations including families, adult men and women, mothers and their children, persons living with HIV/AIDS, and veterans. Seeing the need in our community to serve the poor and the homeless, Mercy House was founded in 1988 by Father Jerome T. Karcher. Over the past 22 years Father Karcher, together with the leadership of Larry Haynes, Mercy House's first employee and only Executive Director, has not ceased to see the need in the community. What was once an agency helping 10 men with one transitional shelter, has grown to serve nearly 7,000 individuals in need last year and expanded to include 4 transitional housing facilities, emergency shelter and services, homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing, and service enriched permanent housing facilities for individuals and families with low income.

About Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations:

Nashville, Tenn.-based Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations (BATO) is a business unit of Bridgestone Americas, Inc., whose parent company, Bridgestone Corporation, is the world's largest tire and rubber company. Reporting into the BATO business unit are the company's Latin American tire operations; the U.S. and Canadian consumer and commercial tire businesses; and Bridgestone Retail Operations, LLC, which operates the largest network of company-owned automotive service providers in the world. BATO develops, manufactures and markets Bridgestone, Firestone and associate brand tires. The commercial tire division is focused on retail, wholesale and original equipment markets, supplying tires to passenger, light truck, commercial vehicle, off road, motorcycle, agricultural and retread markets.