McDonald’s goes pink for the cure

By Matt Echelberry

Inquirer Reporter

Cus­tomers who vis­ited McDonald’s in Galion and Bucyrus were in for a sur­prise on Fri­day, July 27: both restau­rants were abnor­mally pink all day.

The Galion store looked fes­tive inside and out, as the win­dows and outer side­walk were painted with pink rib­bons. The lobby was full of pink bal­loons, stream­ers, table orna­ments and hang­ing dec­o­ra­tions. Dur­ing lunch hours, free face paint­ing was offered to cus­tomers. Even behind the counter, employ­ees wore pink shirts and hats. Some had pink hair, face paint, jew­elry and even a tutu.

How­ever, the wild decor was more than some Fri­day fun. It was part of the “Go Big for the Fight!” char­ity fundraiser at par­tic­i­pat­ing McDonald’s restau­rants through­out cen­tral Ohio in July. From July 1–31 this year, 10 cents from every 32-ounce drink sold went to the Ste­fanie Spiel­man Fund for Breast Can­cer Research (see box for more details). McDonald’s restau­rants have also been sell­ing pink bracelets as part of the fundraiser.

Gen­eral Man­ager Jason Gui­her said that both the cus­tomers and the employ­ees loved the dec­o­ra­tions at the Galion store. “A lot of our peo­ple came in today wear­ing some crazy out­fits and had fun…We also got some great com­pli­ments from peo­ple. They were sur­prised we did this,” he explained.

On the 27th, the Galion and Bucyrus restau­rants offered two addi­tional spe­cials to go with “Go Big For the Fight!”: buy a large Big Mac Value Meal and get a sec­ond Big Mac for $1 or buy a large Quar­ter Pounder Value Meal and get a sec­ond Quar­ter Pounder for $1. A per­cent­age of the money raised from those spe­cials went to the Fund as well, and Scott Nick­ell, owner of both restau­rants, agreed to match the total dona­tions raised that day.

Wear­ing a pink shirt with a pink rib­bon painted on her cheek, Sharon Woz­niak, a shift man­ager at the Galion store, said that the employ­ees who did all of the dec­o­ra­tions late Thurs­day night wished McDonald’s would do some­thing like this more often. Judg­ing by the suc­cess of July’s cam­paign and the cus­tomer recep­tion of it, more char­i­ta­ble pushes are likely and could help the fast food giant sep­a­rate itself from the competition.

For­mer Ohio State Buck­eye Chris Spiel­man part­nered with McDonald’s to cre­ate the cam­paign. Accord­ing to a July 1 press release, “Go Big for the Fight!” serves as the offi­cial kick-off of a two-year part­ner­ship between Spiel­man and Cen­tral Ohio McDonald’s Restau­rants to help pro­mote bal­anced eat­ing, active lifestyles and giv­ing back to com­mu­ni­ties in need.

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The Ste­fanie Spiel­man Fund for Breast Can­cer Research at the Ohio State Uni­ver­sity Com­pre­hen­sive Can­cer Cen­ter – James Can­cer Hos­pi­tal and Solove Research Insti­tute was estab­lished in 1999 by Ste­fanie and Chris Spiel­man after Ste­fanie was diag­nosed with breast can­cer at the age of 30 in 1998.

Know­ing that research is key to help­ing find a cure, the fund is ded­i­cated to advanc­ing breast can­cer research through inno­v­a­tive ther­a­pies, treat­ment options and novel diag­nos­tics. Since its incep­tion, the Spiel­man Fund has raised more than $10 mil­lion. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.spielmanfund.com or fol­low us on Face­book www.facebook.com/SpielmanFund for updates.