Lubavitch and Coca Cola Team Up

An oft-repeated anecdote among Jewish travelers, is the one about the Jewish businessman who went on a sales promotion that took him around the globe. Upon his return, he reported on the trip and said the following:

“Wherever I went, I saw two things. Coca Cola and Lubavitch.”

A Chabad fundraising project in South Carolina goes one step further. It combines both Coca Cola and Lubavitch in a unique and totally compatible way.

“We call it the ‘Coke Machine Program’ around here,” says Rabbi Doron Aizenman, director of the Chabad Organization in Myrtle Beach, “and it began as a good example of parents being involved in their children’s school.”

The Coca Cola fundraiser began to bubble about fifteen years ago, when a group of Chabad’s Hebrew school parents met with Aizenman in a brainstorming session to boost cash flow to the financially-strapped school..

“Quite a few of our parents are owners of retail stores along the beach,” said Rabbi Aizenman “and several of them had Coke vending machines in their stores.”

One of the parents offered to give the proceeds of his machines to the school if Chabad would take over the responsibility of maintaining and restocking them.

According to Aizenman, “this idea thrilled the group,” and the other store owners immediately offered their vending machines as well. Maintenance on the machines can be a headache for storeowners, so this was a win-win situation all around.

“We started with 10 vending machines,” said Aizenman, “and then we approached the Coca Cola distributor with the idea. We couldn’t believe how cooperative they were. They even gave us a discount.”

And just like that, Lubavitch and Coca Cola were partners in a worthwhile cause.

The Hebrew School parents took turns filling up the machines and taking out the change. Every Sunday, one of them would load up their van with the cases of soda and drive around town making the deliveries. “We even put a sticker on the machines that told people to call the school in case of problems,” Aizenman recalls. It was a daunting task and hard work, but the parents persevered.

When Scott Schlesinger, a member of the United States Air Force, enrolled his children, the project really took off. Scott didn’t want the project to ‘fizzle out’ and he wanted even more vending machines. So he volunteered to make deliveries twice a week.”

“He used to arrive early in the morning and load up his station wagon to the hilt, so much so that the tires were literally dragging on the pavement” said Aizenman. “ By 8:00 a.m. he was already back with a huge, heavy bag of change and by Monday morning, we would make a deposit of $1500-$2000. At our peak, we had 25 vending machines and we were earning over $15,000 per year.”

Along the way, an interesting thing happened. The Coke Machine project became a community event. The bank offered to count the cumbersome change at no extra charge and the Coca Cola people extended credit. Chabad became the social center of the community as parents and friends gathered to help in a myriad of ways.

Rabbi Aizenman feels that “when you are in a position of being able to give, you have to be careful not to teach others just to receive. You have to get them involved, to give something back. The ‘sweat’ of their help is the best indication that they care, that our worries are their worries.”

Giving back is a much bandied-about slogan these days. But at Chabad-Lubavitch in Myrtle Beach, giving back is tangible. Every time a parent loads up a vending machine, they are giving a part of themselves for Jewish education.

Every dollar dropped into a Coke machine along the strip, is a dollar that’s helping a little boy to learn the aleph bet, helping to teach a little girl about Shabbat candles, helping teenagers to learn more about their Jewish heritage.

It’s an ideal partnership. Could it be that things really do ‘go better with Coke’?