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NICOR ADVANCED ENERGY DONATES COATS TO NEEDY CHILDREN IN FOX VALLEY
NAPERVILLE, Illinois (12/2/2006) - More than 150 area children will head outside in the cold winter with new outerwear this year, thanks to the generosity of employees at Nicor Services, Nicor Advanced Energy and IBT Solutions.
Partnering with Wayside Cross Ministries of Aurora, the three affiliates of Nicor Inc. offered their employees the opportunity to purchase a coat for needy children. The response was so enthusiastic that Naperville coordinators Gandi Falcon and Trisha Hanson were soon contacting Wayside for more names.
“We get donations from hundreds of individuals; however, for one company this is a lot,” said Scot Thurman, director of Wayside’s Urban Youth Ministry division. “This is a good donation for children who really need it.”
This is the second year that Nicor Services and Nicor Advanced Energy have participated in the “Coats for Kids” project. The Naperville-based companies were joined this year by IBT Solutions, located in Geneva. The three affiliates also have “adopted” five area families and will be providing them with a holiday box filled with clothing, food and toys.
In addition, the proceeds of a holiday food drive organized by the companies will benefit the Wauconda-Island Lake Food Pantry, Worth Township Hall in Alsip, the Batavia Interfaith Food Pantry, and the Northern Illinois Food Bank in St. Charles.
Wayside Cross Ministries will work with a network of churches and social service agencies to distribute the coats to needy families in the Greater Kane County and parts of DuPage and Kendall counties.
Wayside Cross provides shelter and rehabilitative services for men, single women, single-parent families and at-risk children. Its primary goal is to assist people in changing their lives through enrollment in long-term rehabilitation programs.
The Urban Youth Ministry division collaborates with area churches and businesses to coordinate after-school programs, offers a teen mentoring program, and provides a baseball league that involves more than 250 children. It recently opened a satellite location for refugee youth in collaboration with St. David’s Episcopal Church and World Relief.
Nicor Services offers a variety of maintenance and repair warranties to protect residential and commercial customers across the United States. Nicor Advanced Energy offers energy billing options that provide convenience and budget protection. IBT Solutions offers call center services for utility and energy companies. The three companies are non-regulated affiliates of Nicor Inc.
About Nicor Advanced Energy
Nicor Advanced Energy (nicoradvancedenergy.com) is a new Nicor company offering budget-friendly energy plans and convenient billing choices to residential and small commercial customers. Recently approved as an alternative retail gas suppler by the Illinois Commerce Commission, Nicor Advanced Energy is able to offer more innovative natural gas programs and billing options than those offered by traditional utility companies. Nicor Advanced Energy’s parent company, Nicor Inc., (NYSE:GAS) has been part of the fabric of communities in northern Illinois and the Chicago suburbs for five decades. The largest subsidiary, Nicor Gas, was founded in 1954 as Northern Illinois Gas and today is one of the largest natural gas distribution companies in the country, serving more that two million customers in 641 communities
For more information about Nicor Inc. and its companies, go to www.nicor.com. For more information about Wayside, go to www.waysidecross.org.