By Cliff Peale
The Cincinnati Enquirer

JACKSON, Tenn. - As trucks pulled away from the sprawling Pringles plant here, Procter & Gamble Co. said today that it would donate $2 million in media time to the Disaster Relief Fund of the American Red Cross.

P&G just started shipping Pringles this week after a tornado damaged the plant May 4. In a visit here, the company's top executives said damage was in the millions of dollars and that all flavors of Pringles might not be at full capacity until this summer.

The $2 million in advertising time will help rebuild the Red Cross' Disaster Relief Fund, which has dwindled to a dangerously low $5 million, officials said. And P&G also will donate 5 cents for every can of Pringles sold in July, up to $250,000, to the fund.

Added to a previous $125,000 donation and truckloads of products donated to relief efforts, P&G demonstrated that it's committed to this western Tennessee community devastated by the tornado.

"Among the ways they can help, first of all, they get back in operation," Jackson Mayor Charles Farmer said. "They take care of their employees, and they send a strong message to the community that they're here to stay."

The visit by chairman and chief executive A.G. Lafley and several other top executives delivered that message. P&G employs about 1,200 workers here, about 200 who were in the plant when the tornado hit.

The plant started making Pringles in 1971 and has become the region's second-largest employer.

The roof and front end of the plant's southern end collapsed, and bulldozers were pulling out hundreds of cases of water-damaged Pringles to be sent to a landfill. This is P&G's only Pringles plant in North America and usually supplies markets in Latin America and Asia as well.

For now, distribution of Pringles is on allocation, meaning that not all customer orders are filled immediately.

E-mail cpeale@enquirer.com.