ASI® and Avaline Presented with American National Red Cross Circle of Humanitarians Awards

TREVOSE, PA – Dec. 9, 2005 – The American National Red Cross has presented its prestigious Circle of Humanitarians award to the Advertising Specialty Institute and to ASI supplier member, Avaline, to recognize outstanding corporate philanthropy achievements.

The award, accepted by ASI president, Timothy M. Andrews, and Len Hornstein, CEO for Avaline (asi/37590), is given to donors by the American Red Cross to express appreciation for raising more than $50,000 in support of its many relief efforts around the United States.  The Lower Bucks County chapter of the American Red Cross nominated ASI, the work of Andrews, ASI employees, Avaline and ASI’s 21,000 members.   

Left to right: Florence Kawoczka, director of finance for the American Red Cross, Lower Bucks County Chapter, Len Hornstein, CEO for Avaline, Toni Hansen, executive director of the American Red Cross, Lower Bucks County Chapter, and ASI president, Tim Andrews.

“This award is the result of the hard work of thousands of people,” said Andrews.  “I think everyone who contributes to disaster relief efforts deserves a ‘thank you’, especially over the course of the last year, when our world has faced unprecedented hardships.  At this time of the year when we think about others more than ourselves, let’s remember that the American Red Cross often serves as the place for people to turn to for help in many unforeseen events.”

Several donation drives, spearheaded by Andrews and ASI, have raised over $400,000 for hurricanes and tsunami disaster relief efforts in the last two years.  Over $272,000 has been collected for hurricane relief efforts in 2005.

The American Red Cross, Lower Bucks County Chapter, has been impressed with the dedication of Tim Andrews and ASI, and invited him to serve on its board of directors this year. 

Toni Hansen, executive director for the Chapter, said “Absolutely outstanding.  ASI and Tim Andrews have stepped-up and exceeded the expectations of the American Red Cross.  Andrews, ASI, its employees and ASI members deserve this award.”

Len Hornstein, CEO for Avaline, based in Parsippany, New Jersey, said “Our company produced the green bracelets with the call-to-action message of ‘Relief, Rebuild, Renew’ to sell as fundraisers for hurricane relief efforts.  It was gratifying to be able to make a contribution of $55,000 to the ASI donation drive from sales of the bracelets.” 

For more information about ASI, call 800-546-1487, or visit www.asicentral.com.  For more information about the American Red Cross, Lower Bucks County Chapter, call 215-946-4870, or visit www.redcrosslbcc.org.

About ASI
Advertising Specialty Institute is the largest media organization serving the promotional products industry, with a membership of 21,000 distributor firms (sellers) and supplier firms (manufacturers) of promotional products.  Supplier firms use ASI print and electronic resources to market products to more than 18,000 distributor firms.  Distributor firms use ASI print and electronic resources, which contain more than 750,000 promotional products, to locate supplier firms and to market services to buyers of promotional products.  It provides catalogs, informational directories, newsletters, magazines, websites and databases, and offers interactive e-commerce, marketing and selling tools.        

About American Red Cross
Governed by volunteers and supported by community donations, the American Red Cross is a nationwide network of nearly 1,000 chapters and blood services regions dedicated to saving lives and helping people prevent, prepare for and respond to emergencies.  Led by 1.2 million volunteers and 30,000 employees, the Red Cross annually mobilizes relief to families affected by more than 67,000 disasters, trains almost 12 million people in lifesaving skills and exchanges more than one million emergency messages for U.S. military service personnel and their families.  The Red Cross is the largest supplier of blood and blood products to more than 3,000 hospitals across the nation and also assists victims of international disasters and conflicts at locations worldwide.