Happyclown Sponsor Of The Month

April 1998

In the spirit of the new and decidedly different angle that we at Nike Inc. have taken in our new promotional material, we have taken it upon ourselves to become one of Happyclown Inc.'s "Sponsors Of The Month."

We do this not only to promote our many fine shoes and our lines of athletic apparel but also to alert the patrons of Happyclown Inc. about a project that we at Nike Inc. hold very close to our hearts.

The project that I am referring to is known as the Michael Jordan Children of the World Scholarship Fund, and it is with this project, a partnership between Mr. Jordan and ourselves, that we hope to make a positive impact in the developing and more backwards countries around the world.

The Michael Jordan Children of the World Scholarship Fund was set up by Michael Jordan and the people at Nike Inc. to help children in poor countries around the globe. The scholarship fund accomplishes this by sending selected children to a local school sponsored by Nike. At this school they will learn to make Nike T-shirts, socks, and, of course, our famous Air Jordan basketball shoes. Classes will regularly run 16 to 18 hours and the children enjoy their work so much that they hardly ever want a break. Often, a child's work will strike a teacher as being of such good quality that it deserves to be sold. Nike will then sell this product on the child's behalf, the money going to help keep the child at school so that he/she can learn to manufacture even more exciting Nike products.

Some people would call us crazy, saying that a shoe corporation is about making shoes, not about helping the underprivileged children of the world. Well, we at Nike like to think that our company isn't just about shoes. We like to think that Nike is also about a little thing that we like to call love.

Sincerely,
Thomas E. Clark
President, Nike Inc.