A Pepsi distributor stopped donating supplies to the God's Pit Crew relief agency because of the charity's name.
In May 2009, a PepsiCo distribution center in Wytheville, Virginia, abruptly ended its sponsorship of God's Pit Crew, a faith-based nonprofit disaster relief group. This crisis response team, which was founded in 1999 and is based in Danville, Virginia, has since its inception responded to 37 major disasters in 17 states, including providing assistance and supplies in the wake of August 2005's Hurricane Katrina and September 2008's Hurricane Ike. The organization describes its disaster relief efforts thusly:Delivered and helped to distribute over 4 million pounds of supplies in disaster areas. Our volunteers have cut thousands of trees off of peoples homes, gutted out houses, patched roofs, worked feeding kitchens that feed as many as 10,000 people a day a hot meal, they have prayed with people and gave them hope in their time of need. We have helped our own community, by giving more than six hundred thousand pounds of food and supplies to needy people, we helped the elderly with home repairs, helped to rebuild a flood damaged church, gave away over eighty thousand pounds of new baby supplies to crisis pregnancy centers in our area, and gave the Salvation Army in Danville more than sixty thousand pounds of toys and candy over the past two years to be given to needy children in this area. A few of years ago we supplied generators, ice and bottled water to people in Pittsylvania County after storm damage from a Hurricane that hit the coast of Virginia. When a Tornado crossed Riverside drive and up thru Forest Hills our people went in to help.The Wytheville Pepsi distribution center had in the past donated upwards of 18 tractor trailer loads of Gatorade to this disaster relief effort team, but in May 2009 it suddenly ended its relationship with God's Pit Crew for reasons that remain murky. According to WSET-TV in Lynchburg, the change came about because the distribution center had 'policies surrounding giving to a specific religious organization' which applied because God's Pit Crew 'does give to churches.' Officials at the distribution center were reported as saying they were 'reviewing their policies' and 'would try to resume donations to the crew as soon as they can.'In a followup the next day, WSET reported that within an hour of its airing the story, it was informed by Gatorade officials that the company's donations to God's Pit Crew would resume, but Gatorade provided no explanation for its original termination of the agreement other than to say that 'religion played no factor in the decision':ABC 13 News reported local charity group God's Pit Crew had a donation deal terminated with the Wytheville PepsiCo Distribution Center. We were told the reason is because the charity uses the word 'God' in its name. Less than an hour after our story aired, we're told the deal is back on. A Senior Gatorade official from their corporate headquarters phoned to update us on the situation. Gatorade corporate spokeswoman Jennifer Schmidt tells us religion played no factor in the decision to terminate the deal. She would not elaborate on any other reasons for the termination, but stressed those donations are going to resume.PepsiCo representatives did not respond to our inquiries seeking additional information on this issue.
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