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Wracking up cans for cans

By Justin Rocket Silverman, amNewYork Staff Writer
More stories | jsilverman@am-ny.com

November 8, 2007

Sophia Devine, left, Lauren Madeline, center, and Cynthia Silver stand over donated goods at Scores on W. 28th St. in Chelsea where patrons contributing to the Cans for Cans drive receive free admission to the club. (Dave Sanders)

The dancers at Scores weren't expecting the fierce backlash from a Brooklyn middle school when they tried to volunteer for a charity carnival there last month.

"People have the wrong perspective on what we do," said Cynthia Silver, 24, a dancer at Scores West in Chelsea. "It's just entertainment. It doesn't mean I'm a bad person or that I don't want to help the less fortunate."

In an effort to put the school carnival debacle behind them, Scores has launched a "Cans for Cans" drive, now through Nov. 21, offering free admission to anyone who prints out a flyer from the club's Web site and brings in at least one can of food. The cans are collected for donation to City Harvest, a charity that distributes food to more than a quarter million hungry New Yorkers every week. Any customer who donates $10 to City Harvest at Scores also receives a free drink from the bar.

"Many charities have a policy about who they will accept donations from," said Sandra Miniutti, vice president of marketing at charitynavigator.org. "Probably you wouldn't see a religious organization working with Scores."

Scores West marketing director Elda Auerbach agrees. "We run into a lot of roadblocks trying to donate to individual homeless shelters," she said. "People say, 'We can't be associated with you.'"

Fortunately for Auerbach and the Scores' dancers, City Harvest says it is happy to accept food from any donor willing to gather it.

The toughest challenge for Scores, it seems, is getting its customers to actually think ahead far enough to pick up a can of soup on the way to West 28th Street.

"We held 'Cans for Cans' for the first time last year, and all the staff here donated food," Silver said. "But I don't remember seeing a single customer walk in with a can."

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Wracking up cans for cans

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