The public has spoken, and Aplington-Parkersburg High School (A-P), Parkersburg, Iowa, is the deserving grand prize winner of $25,000 in the Henkel Helps Schools Contest, sponsored by Henkel, one of the country’s largest marketers of household brands, including Dial® soaps, Purex® laundry detergents, Renuzit® air fresheners, Loctite® adhesives and Right Guard® antiperspirants. The high school was destroyed by a tornado this past spring, and will use the money to replace lost and damaged classroom supplies, such as textbooks, desks, computers and more.

Lynne Mulder, a parent whose children attend the A-P middle and high schools, nominated the school for the prize. “On May 25, 2008, an F-5 tornado destroyed a third of the community of Parkersburg, Iowa,” she wrote in her submission. “The high school was destroyed. High schoolers will be attending the middle school in Aplington, making cramped quarters this school year, but everyone is determined to make it work.”

The Henkel Helps Schools Contest asked parents, teachers, students and community members from around the country to nominate a deserving school to win $25,000 for enhancements. After reviewing more than 1,500 nominations, Henkel judges narrowed the field to the top 10. The grand prize winner and two runners-up winners were chosen in a nationwide, public, online vote at www.henkelhelps.com. The runners-up schools, Donegan Elementary School in Bethlehem, Pa., and J.B. Atkinson Elementary School in Louisville, Ky., each won $2,500.
 
“It is wonderful to see how the communities – and the public in general – rallied around the top 10 schools during the voting period,” said Henkel spokesperson Natalie Violi. “Henkel is dedicated to lending a helping hand to children and improving our local communities, and we are proud to award these three prizes in the Henkel Helps Schools Contest to three very deserving schools.”

Henkel representatives will visit A-P Middle School in Aplington, Iowa, the temporary location of the displaced high school students, on November 7 to present the $25,000 check.

For more information and to view pictures of the winning schools, visit www.henkelhelps.com. 

Henkel has a special focus on helping children and donates more than $1 million annually for employee volunteer projects that benefit children and young people all over the world.  The Henkel Helps Schools Contest is an extension of the 2007 “Henkel Helps” program, where concerned citizens from all over America wrote in to tell how Henkel could improve their community.  After receiving hundreds of entries and thousands of public votes, Henkel responded by helping to clean up flood damaged areas in Gainesville, Texas.

Social Responsibility
Henkel believes in social responsibility, and in addition to a number of other programs, Henkel has developed the Henkel Smile program.  This program provides financial contributions to organizations in which Henkel employees and retirees volunteer their time. In some cases, Henkel offers paid time off to employees to additionally support their volunteer efforts. Since 2001, Henkel has annually set aside one million euro especially to support children and young people. More than 2,000 volunteer programs have been supported to date and over 45,000 children worldwide in 105 countries have been helped.