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CAPITAL REGION
Stewart’s to donate $1.1M to area causes
Customers give $568K to Holiday Match
BY MICHAEL LAMENDOLA Gazette Reporter

    Stewart’s Shops’ annual Holiday Match program will donate $1.1 million to organizations that help children in 30 counties next year, a company spokesman said Friday.
    Holiday Match runs annually between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day at all of Stewart’s 326 stores. People donate their change at cash registers or write checks, and at the end of the event, Stewart’s matches the contribution, said spokesman Tom Mailey.
    This year, people donated approximately $568,000. With Stewart’s match, the total comes to $1.1 million. The amount is about $100,000 less than last year’s total donation of $1.2 million but about equal to 2006’s total and higher than 2005’s total of $900,000, Mailey said.
    Stewart’s has donated more than $5 million through Holiday Match since starting the program in 1986, he said.
    “This year, we had two strikes going against it,” Mailey said: the economy and five fewer days in which to collect the money. “Thanksgiving was late this year. We are at the mercy of the calendar,” he said.
    As in years past, Stewart’s will distribute money to organizations according to the amount collected at stores in each county. Stewart’s this year distribut- ed $105,208 to organizations in Schenectady County, $156,914 in Saratoga County, $112,234 in Rensselaer County and $202,788 in Albany County. In all, it gave money to more than 1,000 organizations.
    Stewart’s distributes grants to nonprofits that help children, Mailey said. A company committee reviews applications and awards grants in March. Applications are due by Jan. 31.
    Mailey said many organizations depend on.........................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00903