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AmSouth to pay tolls as part of week of giving
By JEFF HARRINGTON
Published June 6, 2005
AmSouth says it wants to do more than expected this week, but it found giving isn't always easy.
As part of a far-reaching "Do More than Expected" Week starting today, the Alabama bank had planned to pay the tolls from 7 to 8 a.m. Thursday on the Lee Roy Selmon and Veterans expressways and the Sunshine Skyway heading into Pinellas County.
It took a bit of back-and-forth with the state Department of Transportation, however, before the bank received preliminary approval for its toll-paying idea late Friday afternoon, bank spokeswoman Jerri Franz said.
The hourlong commuter freebie is expected to cost the bank more than $10,000.
Other parts of the weeklong promotional campaign were set: an affordable housing push in Tampa on Thursday morning; providing lunch for 25 teens in Pasco County; and sponsoring 80 Pinellas County campers from the Ridgecrest YMCA for a lunch and skating party.
Bank employees will take 50 kids in Sarasota to the G Wiz Museum; buy gas for 1,000 people in Orlando; and hold a food drive in Jacksonville. Throughout the week statewide, they'll be passing out coupons for free coffee and free gas.
The bank has long coordinated "random acts of kindness" in communities to back up its slogan as the Relationship People. "We've never done anything of this magnitude," Franz said.
[Last modified June 6, 2005, 01:34:12]
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