C&S Named One Of The Nation’s Top 100 Best Adoption-Friendly Workplaces

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - C&S Wholesale Grocers has been named 1st in our industry and 28th overall in the Dave Thomas Foundation’s 3rd annual ranking of the nation’s 100 Best Adoption-Friendly Workplaces for 2009.

“C&S is committed to creating a better place to work for all our employees, which includes providing benefit programs that meet the diverse needs of our employees and their families,” says Bruce A. Johnson, Executive Vice President, Human Resources at C&S Wholesale Grocers, Inc. “Our Adoption Assistance Plan, in particular, recognizes that our employees build their families in many ways. Through the plan, we give our employees the financial assistance and time away from work they may need to open their hearts and homes to children through adoption.”

Today, more than 150,000 foster care children are available for adoption in North America – 129,000 of them in the United States. Most will spend nearly four years in the system before they are adopted. The release of the third annual Best Adoption-Friendly Workplace List helps the Foundation increase foster care adoption awareness while celebrating those businesses that support adoptive families.

“The fact that C&S offers both a financial benefit and time off for adoption was huge,” said Len Giroux, a Senior Programmer at C&S. “My wife and I would have adopted anyway, but we are so grateful that the company understood the expenses and time involved in the process.”

“The company culture supports employees during the adoption process,” said Deanna Kellogg, Manager of Accounts Receivable. “I was allowed time to attend the endless important meetings, home studies, background checks and more. In the end, I feel incredibly lucky to work for a company like this.”

Rankings for the 100 Best Adoption-Friendly Workplaces are determined by an analysis of a company’s adoption benefits – financial reimbursement and paid leave – available to employees who adopt. The Foundation compiled the results from survey data collected from 753 U.S. employers. Employee Benefit News, a SourceMedia publication that is the leading source of information for benefits decision makers, helped extend the survey’s scope even further by inviting readers to participate. To view the complete Adoption-Friendly Workplace List, please visit www.davethomasfoundation.org.

About the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption is a nonprofit public charity dedicated to dramatically increasing the number of adoptions of foster care children in North America. Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s and an adopted child, created the Foundation in 1992 in support of the vision that every child will have a permanent home and a loving family. The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption focuses on increasing foster care adoption awareness while supporting model adoption service programs and is committed to ensuring that adoption from the foster care system in streamlined, affordable and accessible to any family wanting to adopt. To learn more about the Foundation’s work, go to www.davethomasfoundation.org.