"Kids are important to us," says Glen Jordan, owner of Jordano's Pizza. Jordan offers tours to local school groups and uses his company's pizza boxes to advertise a child abuse hot line.

By Kelly Humphrey - Daily News
During his years as a Special Forces officer in Southeast Asia, Glen Jordan saw firsthand the suffering that war and poverty wrought on innocent children. Years later, as a small business owner, Jordan is determined to use every opportunity at his disposal to help children who are hurting. "I've always tried my best to support children and families," the owner of the Jordano's Pizza chain explained. "Since starting this business in 1994, I've been committed to helping out the churches and schools in this community. I feel like they are the main source of support for families, and by helping them, I can indirectly help others, too. That support often takes the form of donated or deeply discounted pizzas for church, school and civic groups, as well as a special "Pizza School" program that invites school classes to visit one of the Jordano's stores for a special field trip. "We try to make the kids feel special," Jordan explains. "We let them tour the store and see houw pizzas are made. Then we give them the opportunity to make their own pizzas. The whole purpose is to let them know that someone cares about them." Shortly after opening his first Jordano's location in Mary Esther, Jordan sought to use his advertising and marketing materials as a means to combat child abuse. He hit upon including information about ChildHelp USA, a national child abuse prevention program, on all of his pizza boxes. "Our boxes go out to homes all over the area," he explained. "I realized that we had a great way to get the word out to people who might need help." Each Jordano's Pizza box includes the 800 number (1-800-4-A-Child) for ChildHelp USA, as well as information about the organization. In fact, some children have begun to associate Jordano's Pizza with the toll-free number. "Over the years, we've had kids call our store, asking us for the number," Jordan explained. "They remembered seeing it on our box, but they couldn't remember what it was." Jordan hopes to spread the word about ChildHelp USA even further by donating pizzas to each class at Destin Elementary School over the next few weeks. "As a way to celebrate the remodeling of our Destin store, we're going to feed one class at a time," Jordan said. "We started out by feeding the faculty first. I'm hoping the teachers will be able to use the pizzas as an incentive for the kids to do their best and reach their goals." While his resources are limited, Jordan is eager to reach out to other service organizations in the xommunity. "We can't help everybody, obviously, but if there are nonprofit organizations out there who need help. I hope they'll give me a call," he said. "If there's a way for us to help them reach their goals, we'll try our best to do it."