Industry sponsors provide 1,000 shirts to tech schools

Through the sponsorship of Bar’s Products, CARSTAR, Colormatch, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Ford Motor Company, I-CAR, and Panasonic, 1,000 Cintas technician shirts will be distributed to secondary and post-secondary collision students through the Collision Repair Education Foundation this fall.

The student technician shirt project also helped raise $14,000 for the Foundation’s Collision Repair Education Campaign fund that helps provide student scholarships, school grants, and the Foundation’s Ultimate Collision Education Makeover grant. In addition to providing a significant discount on the technician shirts and sponsor patches, Cintas Corporation donated the shipping costs of the 1,000 completed technician shirts.

These technician shirts will be distributed to schools who apply for the Education Foundation’s 2011 Ultimate Collision Education Makeover grant and those students attending NACE and SEMA.

Education Foundation Executive Director, Scott Kruger commented, “To date, the Education Foundation has been able to provide nearly 5,000 Cintas technician uniforms to collision students nationwide through the support of the shirt sponsors. Instructors share stories with us that these uniforms provide their collision students with a new level of respect around school and other school departments are jealous of the support that the collision program receives. On behalf of the Foundation staff and the students that we are able to provide these uniforms to, thank you to the sponsors. We look forward to continuing this program and supporting the future of the collision industry.”

Those companies interested in sponsoring future technician uniforms should contact Education Foundation Associate Director of Development Brandon Eckenrode at Brandon.Eckenrode@ed- foundation.org or 847-463-5244.

Additional information about the Collision Repair Education Foundation can be found online at www.CollisionEducationFoundation .org.