NEWSLETTERS

NEWSLETTERS - Customer Saunders fights for "discarded boys"

Customer Saunders fights for "discarded boys"

Long-time BestWay Rent To Own customer Vivian Sanders is the "Realness of Bertie County." She is also APRO's 2011 Customer of the Year.

Her life's work is driven by a keen understanding that a society only harvests what it sows. That is why she has invested her life, and her retirement pension, into the mission of righting the course of African American boys in crisis.

Saunders keeps it "real" by facing the area's "real" problems as the executive director of The Hive -- an alternative charter school she founded in rural Bertie County, North Carolina -- and as the director of two community centers that provide everything from a food pantry to a computer lab, job training and drug counseling.

The Hive -- officially opened in 2009 in partnership with the Bertie County School System and One Economy -- was a natural extension of the youth program Saunders established at her community center where suspended students from the district were often sent.

But this spring, The Hive fell victim to state budget cuts -- the school's primary funding source. Saunders is paying the rent with her meager teacher's retirement fund and is scrambling to keep the after-school and summer program alive if only on a temporary basis.

"That (funding cuts) was devastating," she said. "The outlook is not good for these boys on the streets. For many of them, this is the only positive thing going in their lives."

Read full story.





2012 APRO Convention and Trade Show

July 24-26, Memphis, TN

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RTOHQ: The Magazine
RTOHQ: The Magazine is the Association of Progressive Rental Organizations' award-winning rent-to-own industry magazine, and it's available here.

CLICK HERE FOR OUR DIGITAL RTOHQ: THE MAGAZINE

 

RTOHQ: The Magazine’s upgraded digital format

APRO's new, mobile-ready magazine is now available in addition to our print edition. The digital format provides the same informative content as our printed magazine, but also offers tools to make the reading experience more enriching. Access the table of contents page with one click or tap. Get additional information from advertisers by clicking on the links in their ads. The interface is easy to navigate and requires no special app—read our magazine on your computer, digital table or smartphone. Click here to access the digital version of RTOHQ: The Magazine March-April 2012.

 

 

A New Rent-to-Own Experience

by Neil Ferguson

Here’s the lowdown on APRO’s 2012 Convention and Trade Show, July 24-26 in Memphis. The RTO industry’s big event will offer many valuable experiences, including insights on how to turn your stores into “experiences”–the good kind for consumers

 

Who Is Your Competition?

by Bill Keese

In order to expand your customer base, you can learn a lot by observing your competitors. But first, you need to figure out just who they are. If you think your only competition is the rent-to-own store down the street, you’re not considering the bigger picture. APRO’s executive director offers a big-picture perspective.

 

A Review of Online Customer Complaints

by Ed Winn III

While rent-to-own companies have not cornered the market on negative reviews posted on consumer complaint websites, it’s no surprise that there are cyberspace beefs against RTO. APRO’s general counsel reviews some of them in search of a pattern and he considers appropriate response to online complaints.

 

Rent-to-Own Families, Part VIII

by Kristen Card

Our series of family-run rent-to-own businesses continues with profiles of the Homeiers in Kansas and two Texas-based sets of kindred colleagues, the Spangles and the Weisblatts.

 

 

Future issues of APRO's magazine will be available in this same new format. Click here to access past issues that are not yet archived in the new interface.

 

Association of Progressive Rental Organizations
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