SAFEWAY SPONSORS EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM WITH PET COMPANY

RICHARD TURCSIK

BELLEVUE, Wash. -- A partnership between Safeway's Seattle Division here and American Nutrition Pet Food Co. has become the springboard for teaching fourth graders about veterinary medicine.

Safeway stores, local veterinarians and the American Nutrition Pet Food Co. jointly sponsored a week-long curriculum guide that educates children about the interdependency of people and animals and the important role animals and veterinarians play in society. In addition, participating schools can request a veterinarian visit to the fourth grade classroom to talk about animals and veterinary medicine.

The school program has been established through the Safeway Veterinary Strategic Alliance -- a collaboration between local family veterinarians and Safeway that encourages better pet health.

American Nutrition is making a donation to help cover the expense of the school guides with each purchase of one of its Atta Boy, Atta Cat or Tyrell pet food products in Safeway stores.

Steve Mills, vice president, marketing, sales, in the Woodlawn, Wash., office of Ogden, Utah-based American Nutrition Pet Food Co., told SN that the company's involvement in the Safeway Veterinary Alliance Program has allowed it to participate in the Safeway Coupon Book at a reduced rate. American Nutrition has been affiliated with the Safeway Veterinary Strategic Alliance for about a year, but has been selling its products in Safeway stores for about 20 years.

"Through our participation in the Safeway Alliance we get a shelf tag, a coupon book and the item shown in color in the coupon book," Mills said. He noted that the coupon books were available at participating veterinarian offices and in-store, and they were mailed to customers' homes.

According to the Safeway Veterinary Strategic Alliance Web Site, the week-long curriculum is broken into five daily units for fourth graders, covering social studies, science, citizenship, career education and math education. All the units are related to animals.

Each unit takes about 45 minutes to complete and includes a suggested lesson plan, background information on the material and activity sheets for classroom distribution.

The Safeway Veterinary Strategic Alliance program was coordinated for Safeway by Mars Advertising, Southfield, Mich. Officials at Safeway referred calls to Mars. Account representatives at Mars did not return phone calls.

The program began in October, and the veterinarian visits are scheduled to run through the end of the year.