Cullman City Schools Superintendent Susan Patterson, left, accepts a check from Terry Shabel with PepsiCo.

Cullman’s own Pepsi Distributing Center has donated $10,000 to local schools to help make sure the county’s students are able to finish out the year online.

The company presented checks to area schools Thursday and Friday that are meant to go towards wifi hotspots to help students continue their educations at home for the rest of the school year.

PepsiCo General Manager Terry Shabel said the Cullman City School System received $3,000 and St. Bernard Preparatory School received $1,000 on Thursday, and the Cullman County School System received a check for $6,000 Friday morning. 

The Shabel family, who owns the Pepsi distribution company, reached out to local school systems to see where the biggest needs were during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We just wanted to give back and help everybody out,” he said. “This is our home too, we all live here.”

Shabel said he learned that there are still some students who don’t have internet access to complete their online learning, and wifi hotspots were one of the schools’ priorities.

“When something like this comes up, nobody’s prepared for it,” he said.

Shabel said he was happy that PepsiCo was able to provide support to local schools and students who need a helping hand.

“It’s great,” he said. “It just really makes me proud of this company is stepping up and helping out.”

Cullman City Schools Superintendent Susan Patterson said the city system has already distributed 64 wifi hotspots to students who didn’t have the internet at home, and the schools are grateful for the community’s support in helping those students.

“We are so thankful for our local businesses like Pepsi that support our schools,” she said in an email. “Through their donation we are able bridge the equity gap for some of our students so they can continue learning during this time.”

Cullman County Schools Superintendent Shane Barnette also made sure to thank Pepsi for their contribution to the area’s schools.

The county system has already given out around 4,000 wifi hotspots to students, and the donation will help make sure that many more students can have internet access to finish out the school year. 

“I’m appreciative of Pepsi stepping up and seeing the need and setting out to meet that need,” he said. “We’re eager to help kids, but we’re eager to get back to some type of normalcy as well.”

Along with the monetary donations in Cullman County, Pepsi will also be making similar contributions to the three other counties in the company’s coverage area — Lawrence, Limestone and Morgan — so there will be somewhere between $40,000-$50,000 dollars going to schools around North Alabama.