*By Conor White*
The Coca-Cola Company has a market cap of nearly $190 billion, but the beverage behemoth still considers itself a small business. The largest small business in America, in fact.
At least that's how Caren Pasquale Seckler, vice president of social commitment at Coca-Cola sees it. "Part of who we are, is that we are extremely local," she explained. "We have 90,000 employees across the country, in every community in the country, through ourselves, our company, as well as our family of independent bottlers. So, we are literally a part of the community."
Among its social initiatives, Coca-Cola is launching the "Dear Future Community Challenge," encouraging 18-24 year olds to submit proposals on how to tackle community-specific problems. Seventeen winners will be chosen, and rewarded with a $30,000 grant to fund their visions.
Coca-Cola's involvement at the local level is just one detail that most consumers, and even some associates, aren't familiar with, Seckler said. In an interview Tuesday on Cheddar, she explained why it's so important for the company to share its story with the world.
"Consumers are demanding to know more," said Seckler. "So when we spoke to our consumers, they just didn't really know what we stood for, they didn't know what the company stood for, and they expected to know more."
It's no surprise that The Coca-Cola Company's decision to open its proverbial doors comes in the same era as the rise of social media.
"Young people appreciate authenticity and transparency and humility, and frankly that's who we are," explained Seckler. "We've been doing good things for 132 years, and we're just now starting to talk about it."
For the full segment, [click here.]( https://cheddar.com/videos/the-coca-cola-company-goes-local)
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A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
