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HOLIDAY INN ® BRAND AWARDS MANHATTAN-BASED HARLEM GROWN A "SMALL BUSINESS IN A BOX" TO EXPAND WORK IN HARLEM COMMUNITY Grand Prize Includes $25,000 to Support the Organization's Extraordinary Journey in 2015

Posted February 9, 2015

Greater New York City area non-profit Harlem Grown has been named as the winner of the Holiday Inn® brand’s “Small Business in a Box” contest, receiving a $25,000 grant from the brand to expand its work in the local community. The contest, created to give one visionary entrepreneur the gift of possibility, launched in late December in celebration of the finale of the Holiday Inn and HLN co-created series Growing America: A Journey to Success. The Holiday Inn brand recognized Harlem Grown for its mission to inspire youth in Harlem to live healthy lives through hands-on education and mentorship in urban farming, sustainability and nutrition. Harlem Grown operates several local urban farms in Harlem and plans to use the funds to further its impact in the community it serves.

“Ninety percent of the families of the children we serve are at or below the poverty line, living in public housing and may not otherwise be able to afford access to fresh, organic food,” said Tony Hillery, founding director, Harlem Grown. “Winning the Holiday Inn brand’s ‘Small Business in a Box’ contest affords us the funds to not only reach more families in need, but also clean up areas in the community that are overridden with crime and trash, and transform them into thriving sustainable urban farms, instilling healthy habits in young kids for generations to come.”

Harlem Grown is an organization that understands the importance of children and helping them make smart decisions as they grow into adulthood. Children and their families are also at the heart of the Holiday Inn brand, which was conceived as a way to bring the joy of travel to families in a fun, affordable and comfortable way. Since the first hotel opened more than 60 years ago, Holiday Inn hotels have been committed to providing family-friendly travel options, including the Kids Stay and Eat Free programs. For today’s traveler, the Holiday Inn name stands for more than just a hotel, but for the contemporary design, modern amenities and warm, welcoming service that distinguish the brand.

“Kemmons Wilson created the Holiday Inn brand to change the way people travel, and the brand has a history of supporting and enabling entrepreneurs working to accomplish their goals and positively impact their community,” said Maurice Cooper, vice president, Holiday Inn® brand, the Americas, IHG. “Harlem Grown’s mission and focus on families closely aligns with the values on which the Holiday Inn brand was built, and we look forward to seeing them use the grand prize funds to support their continued extraordinary journey.”

As the winner of the Holiday Inn “Small Business in a Box” contest, Harlem Grown will receive the $25,000 grant, as well as the opportunity to work hand-in-hand for one week with Casey Gerald and Michael Baker, co-founders of MBAs Across America (MBAxAmerica), an innovative program that takes MBA students from some of America’s most prestigious universities and challenges them to take a journey across the U.S., learning from and working with visionary entrepreneurs who are making a difference in their communities. The organization will also receive 140,000 IHG® Rewards Club points to be applied towards future stays at a Holiday Inn property.

The Holiday Inn brand launched the “Small Business in a Box” contest via Twitter on December 22, 2014, asking entrepreneurs across the U.S. to tweet how their small businesses give back to their local communities, using the hashtag #SmallBizWishContest. Ten finalists were chosen from the pool of initial entries and asked to submit a two-minute video highlighting their positive social impact within their hometown, their business vision and what the prize would mean to them. A panel of judges from the Holiday Inn brand and MBAxAmerica then chose Harlem Grown as the overall contest winner from the ten finalists’ videos.

“Small Business in a Box” is the culmination of the Holiday Inn / HLN (a Turner Broadcasting network) co-created series, Growing America: A Journey to Success. The six-episode original series followed teams of MBA students from the MBAxAmerica program, who were given one week to use their expertise to transform small businesses and positively affect communities in cities across the U.S. Throughout the series, the Holiday Inn brand provided hotel accommodations for the MBA teams, giving them a place to relax, refresh and collaborate, and enable their journeys across the country. The brand also documented and shared the extraordinary journeys of these MBA teams and the entrepreneurs through a "Signature Stories" series as part of the Holiday Inn brand’s Journey to Extraordinary campaign.