Mazda North American Operations’ Drive for Good holiday promotion has grown into a new role as St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital’s corporate partner of the year.
The Irvine-based automaker donated $527,000 to the non-profit research and treatment facility in Memphis, Tenn.—Mazda’s largest single charitable donation to date.
“Mazda’s connection to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is very personal due to the fact that many years ago one of our employees had a child who was a patient of St. Jude,” Robert Davis, Mazda’s senior vice president of U.S. operations, said in a statement. “St. Jude treated our employee like family and being that Mazda is a company with a close family-like culture, this resonated well with us.”
The automaker’s Drive for Good program included a donation of $100 for every new vehicle sold or leased between Nov. 25, 2013 and Jan. 2, 2014. The money—a total of $2.7 million—went to four national and 32 local charities, as designated by customers.
Mazda featured the late Danny Thomas, St. Jude’s founder, as its “game changer” in a 30-second TV spot during the holiday promotion to “highlight the amazing accomplishments St. Jude has reached throughout its 52-year history, including pushing the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20% to more than 80% today.”
