Louisville, Ky.-based KFC is tackling the pothole problem in its hometown and other U.S. cities. The company is spending between $3,000 and $5,000 to fill potholes in its headquarters city. As part of the repair, a "Re-freshed by KFC," stencil is stamped into the fresh patch. The chalky stencil fades away in the next rainfall.

KFC’s monetary donation to the cause could fill close to 400 potholes, estimated Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson. In a statement, the mayor added: “In these challenging economic times, funding road repairs is a major issue for mayors nationwide. It’s encouraging to see a concerned corporation like KFC create innovative private/public partnerships like this ‘pothole refresh’ program."

KFC decided to "re-fresh" city streets as a tie-in to its "fresh" advertising campaign, which promotes a food quality message. "It was always our plan to make our hometown of Louisville the first city for the program," Rick Maynard, the company’s public relations manager, said, and he noted that the spring pothole-fixing season was an additional impetus.

In addition to the Louisville effort, KFC has selected the following cities for pothole-repair funding:

Chattanooga, Tenn.
Topeka, Kan.
Warren, Ohio
Petaluma, Calif.

Maynard told GovPro.com that he expects pothole-patch work will begin in each of those cities over the next week or two. The corporate donation will be in the same range as the donation to Louisville, between $3,000 and $5,000.

KFC had issued an open offer to mayors of cities across the U.S., asking them to describe their city streets' state of disrepair. The four additional cities were selected at random by company officials.

Asked if the company planned to expand the patch program beyond the five cities, Maynard told GovPro.com: “Not immediately. Obviously, there’s been a lot of interest in this, so it might be something that we look at revisiting again next spring.”

KFC, the chicken restaurant chain, operates 14,000 outlets in 80 countries and territories around the world, serving 12 million customers each day. KFC Corp. is a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc.