Ball Corporation

Ball Corporation, originally Ball Brothers Glass Manufacturing Company, is an American company famous for producing glass canning jars. Founded in 1880, it is currently headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado. The company has expanded into other areas such as avionics, space systems, metal beverage and food containers and aluminum aerosol containers. Ball is the largest producer of recyclable beverage cans in the world. The company exited the home canning business in 1993 by spinning it off into a separate company, Alltrista (since renamed Jarden).

Company history

In 1880, Frank C. and Edmund B. Ball, two of the five Ball brothers of fruit jar fame, borrowed $200 from their Uncle George Harvey Ball, founder and first president of Keuka College, to buy the Wooden Jacket Can Company (years later the brothers would reciprocate by providing financial support to their uncle's college). The wooden jackets encased tin cans which held kerosene. Because the acid used to refine kerosene caused corrosion in tin, the brothers decided to use glass for the inserts of the wood-jacketed cans. Initially, they bought the glass containers from a factory in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Ball

A ball is a round, usually spherical but sometimes ovoid, object with various uses. It is used in ball games, where the play of the game follows the state of the ball as it is hit, kicked or thrown by players. In the context of sports, "ball" need not refer to a spherical object, as is the case in American football. Balls can also be used for simpler activities, such as catch, marbles and juggling. Balls made from hard-wearing materials are used in engineering applications to provide very low friction bearings, known as ball bearings. Black-powder weapons use stone and metal balls as projectiles.

Although many types of balls are today made from rubber, this form was unknown outside the Americas until after the voyages of Columbus. The Spanish were the first Europeans to see bouncing rubber balls (albeit solid and not inflated) which were employed most notably in the Mesoamerican ballgame. Balls used in various sports in other parts of the world prior to Columbus were made from other materials such as animal bladders or skins, stuffed with various materials.

Common Cents

Common Cents is a national educational, not-for-profit organization, which specializes in creating and managing service-learning programs for young people between the ages of four and 14. Common Cent's most popular and best known program is The Penny Harvest, the largest child philanthropy program in the United States.

Other Common Cents programs include the Student Community Action Fund (a high school leadership council.)

History

Common Cents grew from the desire of a four-year-old Nora Gross (Co-Founder) to feed a homeless man in 1990. That need led her to ask her father (Teddy Gross Co-Founder and Executive Director), how she could help. In 1990, Teddy Gross and Nora Gross conducted the first Penny Harvest in an effort to collect money to feed and clothe New York City's homeless.

Awards

Common Cents is the winner of the 2007 NY1 New Yorker of the Year award. Common Cents was also shortlisted for the 2007 Carl Bertelsmann's Award.

Leadership

The organization's co-founder and Executive Director is Teddy Gross.