PepsiCo Dream Machine Recycling Initiative Makes Inaugural $500,000 Donation to Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities

Funding supports career training, education and job creation for post-9/11 U.S. veterans with disabilities

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Nov 08, 2010, 04:16 ET

PURCHASE, N.Y., Nov. 8, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- To commemorate Veterans Day, PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP), through its Dream Machine recycling initiative, made a $500,000 donation to the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV), a national program offering career training, education and job creation for post-9/11 U.S. veterans with disabilities. PepsiCo presented the donation this past weekend during a ceremony at Syracuse University, home to the Whitman School of Management, where the EBV program was founded.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20101108/NY97305 )

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20101108/NY97305 )

PepsiCo will make a minimum contribution to EBV of $500,000 per year, over the next several years, and is urging America to join the recycling movement to help Turn Bottles to Jobs. The more that people recycle beverage containers - plastic bottles and aluminum cans - in a Dream Machine, the more support PepsiCo can provide EBV. In addition to the annual contribution, for every 10 million pounds of recycled material collected in Dream Machine kiosks and bins, PepsiCo will contribute an additional $250,000 to the veterans organization.

"The Dream Machine recycling initiative marks one example of how PepsiCo's Performance with Purpose mission is coming to life, and how we're delivering on our promise to find innovative, sustainable solutions to help protect the environment," said Jeremy Cage, Senior Vice President of Innovation and Insights, PepsiCo Beverages Americas. "We are proud to support the EBV and proud of the Dream Machine's role in giving Americans an opportunity to support the program as well, simply by recycling."

The Dream Machine recycling initiative - a multi-year collaboration with Waste Management, Keep America Beautiful and Greenopolis - is designed to give people a convenient and rewarding way to recycle on-the-go, and drive success against PepsiCo's goal of increasing the U.S. beverage container recycling rate from 34 percent to 50 percent by 2018. Since the program launched in April 2010, static bins and interactive kiosks have been placed in 14 states at high-traffic locations such as gas stations, shopping malls, sports arenas and university campuses.

"Through the Dream Machine program, PepsiCo is playing a direct role in helping our veterans with disabilities realize the most American of all dreams – business ownership," said J. Michael Haynie, EBV founder and Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at Syracuse University's Whitman School of Management. "The Dream Machine program will have a profound and enduring impact on the lives of so many of our veterans and their families, and the EBV program and our veterans-turned-entrepreneurs are exceedingly proud to have PepsiCo as a partner."

In addition to supporting U.S. veterans with disabilities through the Dream Machine program, PepsiCo contributes to national veteran-related causes including American Corporate Partners and the Bob Woodruff Foundation. Through the Pepsi Refresh Project, the company has awarded $575,000, to date, in grants that support American military troops and veterans. Just recently, PepsiCo launched Valor, an employee resource group that aims to recognize, appreciate and support military veterans, their families and the communities in which they live and work.

To learn more about the Dream Machine recycling initiative, please visit Facebook.com/DreamMachine.

About PepsiCo

PepsiCo offers the world's largest portfolio of billion-dollar food and beverage brands, including 19 different product lines that each generates more than $1 billion in annual retail sales. Our main businesses - Frito-Lay, Quaker, Pepsi-Cola, Tropicana and Gatorade - also make hundreds of other nourishing, tasty foods and drinks that bring joy to our consumers in more than 200 countries. With annualized revenues of nearly $60 billion, PepsiCo's people are united by our unique commitment to sustainable growth, called Performance with Purpose. By dedicating ourselves to offering a broad array of choices for healthy, convenient and fun nourishment, reducing our environmental impact, and fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace culture, PepsiCo balances strong financial returns with giving back to our communities worldwide. In recognition of its continued sustainability efforts, PepsiCo was named for the third time to the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index (DJSI World) and for the fourth time to the Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index (DJSI North America) in 2009. For more information, please visit www.pepsico.com.

About Waste Management

Waste Management, based in Houston, Texas, is the leading provider of comprehensive waste management services in North America. Our subsidiaries provide collection, transfer, recycling and resource recovery, and disposal services. We are also a leading developer, operator and owner of waste-to-energy and landfill gas-to-energy facilities in the United States. Our customers include residential, commercial, industrial, and municipal customers throughout North America.

About Greenopolis

Greenopolis LLC, is a subsidiary of Waste Management. Greenopolis.com is the first interactive community that connects the online conversation about recycling and resource management with opportunities to track the products that consumers use and recycle through recycling kiosks located in public venues and other on the go locations. Through Greenopolis, environmentally responsible individuals can earn rewards for recycling and resource-conscious companies can better understand the lifecycle of their products. "Rethink. Recycle. Reward. Closing the Loop Together." For more information visit www.greenopolis.com.

About Keep America Beautiful, Inc.

Keep America Beautiful, Inc., established in 1953, is the nation's largest volunteer-based community action and education organization. With a network of nearly 1,200 affiliate and participating organizations, Keep America Beautiful forms public-private partnerships and programs that prevent litter, reduce waste, increase recycling, and create greener public spaces. To learn more, visit www.kab.org.

About The Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities

The Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV) is a program first created by the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University, designed to provide training in entrepreneurship and small business management to post-9/11 veterans with disabilities resulting from their military service. The mission of the EBV is to open the door to business ownership for our veterans, by developing skills that relate to the many steps associated with launching and growing a small business. Today the EBV is offered by a network of world-class business schools across the U.S., that includes Syracuse University, Texas A&M University, Florida State University, UCLA, Purdue University, and the University of Connecticut. The training is provided at no cost to eligible veterans.

SOURCE PepsiCo