450,000 Students Across the Country Impacted by Bounty's "We Love Our School" Program

CINCINNATI, May 26, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Since February 14, 2011 Bounty has been on a mission to spread love and cleanliness through schools across the country. In partnership with PTO Today, Procter & Gamble Company's (NYSE: PG) Bounty® brand helped clean 2,500 schools across the country resulting in cleaner learning environments for more than 450,000 students, which included two $50,000 classroom makeovers. As an extension of the Make a Clean Difference campaign, the brand successfully impacted schools nationwide since the launch of the "We Love Our School" program. The catalyst for the program was a survey conducted earlier this year that found 51 percent of U.S. teachers report avoiding certain in-class projects or activities because they dread the clean-up afterwards.

The cleaning initiative launched on Valentine's Day of this year – one of the most fitting days to show schools some love – and helped mobilize parents and community volunteers in 1,000 schools and 2,500 classrooms nationwide. To kick off the week of cleaning, Bounty engaged Golden Globe nominee and mother of two, Julianne Moore along with dozens of local volunteers at a Manhattan public school to help give the classrooms some extra attention with a good, spring cleaning. Closing out the week-long effort, Bounty asked star of the Style Network's "Life in the Fab Lane" and mother of three, Kimora Lee Simmons, to help clean up a Harlem school and to also announce the next big phase of the program – a chance at a $50,000 classroom makeover.

Bringing the cleaning effort to more schools around the country, the first 500 parents and teachers to take the Make a Clean Difference Pledge at Bounty's Facebook page received much-needed supplies for a school clean-up of their own and were entered for a chance to win a $50,000 designer classroom makeover designed by HGTV's "Home By Novogratz" stars, Bob and Cortney Novogratz. After receiving entries from more than 2,600 schools, the grand prize was awarded to Winegard Elementary in Orlando, FL. The school received a revamped music room and art space along with new musical instruments, computers, desks and iPads to help inspire the students to be more creative.

"The past four months have been a huge success for not only the brand but for teachers and students in classrooms across the country," said Dave Lee, Procter & Gamble's North American Bounty delivery brand manager. "Our goal with this program was to help shed light on the needs that teachers and schools have and supply materials that will help teachers continue to encourage their students to be more creative and to 'bring it' in everything they do at school and in life, both of which are values the Bounty brand stands by."

To wrap up the program Kimora Lee Simmons continued to share her "fabulousness" by providing a $50,000 art classroom makeover to the students of North St. Francois County High School in Bonne Terre, MO, the second school to be awarded a Bounty clean-school makeover. The Style Network star brought some big city design back to her home state of Missouri and helped conclude another successful Bounty initiative.

Bounty was able to reach so many communities with the help of PTO Today, an organization focused on filling un-met school needs through parent-teacher partnerships and their extensive national database of schools.

"Working with the Bounty brand on the 'We Love Our School' program was the perfect way for PTO Today to continue its mission in making a difference for schools and teachers," said Tim Sullivan, Founder & President, PTO Today. "We look forward to other opportunities to work with Bounty and continue improving educational environments across the United States."

For information on this program and Bounty's future school initiatives, visit www.Facebook.com/Bounty.  

The Bounty "We Love Our School" Teacher Survey was conducted by Wakefield Research between January 26th and February 7th, 2011. For this research, 1,001 telephone interviews were fielded among American elementary and middle school teachers.

About Bounty

Bounty has been America's most popular paper towel for more than 30 years.  In the U.S., P&G offers the following premium two-ply paper towel products: Bounty Select-a-Size; Bounty White; Bounty Extra Soft; and Bounty Fun Prints.  Additionally, P&G offers Bounty Basic, a quality one-ply paper towel as well Bounty Quilted Napkins. For more information on Bounty, visit www.facebook.com/bounty.

About Procter & Gamble

Four billion times a day, P&G brands touch the lives of people around the world. The company has one of the strongest portfolios of trusted, quality, leadership brands, including Pampers®, Tide®, Ariel®, Always®, Whisper®, Pantene®, Mach3®, Bounty®, Dawn®, Gain®, Pringles®, Charmin®, Downy®, Lenor®, Iams®, Crest®, Oral-B®, Duracell®, Olay®, Head & Shoulders®, Wella®, Gillette®, Braun® and Fusion®. The P&G community includes approximately 127,000 employees working in about 80 countries worldwide. Please visit http://www.pg.com for the latest news and in-depth information about P&G and its brands.

About School Family Media, Inc. & PTO Today

Since 1999, School Family Media, Inc., through its PTO Today, Inc. property, has been connecting with PTO and PTA leaders and school families at every public and private K-8 school nationwide - more than 83,000 schools - through its print, online resources and school-family event programs.  School Family Media is focused exclusively on helping parents and schools help children succeed by promoting and enabling practical and meaningful parent involvement at school.  School Family Media's parent-focused, out-of-the-classroom programs and resources, such as School Family Nights®, Parent Education Nights, Healthy School Kids®, Back2School and SchoolFamily.com, offer school families the widest possible range of opportunities and resources for strengthening the connection between the parent, student and school community.  Learn more at www.schoolfamilymedia.com.

SOURCE P&G / Bounty