April 25, 2007 - Avnet Recognized as Northern Illinois Food Bank's Volunteer Corporation of the Year

Employees spend more than 400 hours a year sorting and packaging donations.

Arlington Heights, Ill. -- Avnet, Inc.’s (NYSE:AVT) Chicago office was named Volunteer Corporation of the Year by Northern Illinois Food Bank (NIFB) at its annual volunteer dinner.

At least 12 to 15 employees of the Arlington Heights-based office each spend three hours a month inspecting, cleaning, sorting and packaging donated food items from retailers, manufacturers, corporations and community resources. Since they began volunteering in November of 2004, the Avnet team has served for more than 800 hours at NIFB.

“NIFB relies on the Avnet team to arrive on Tuesday evenings with its special enthusiasm and spirit – they always manage to walk through our doors with smiles on their faces, which isn’t an easy thing to do after a long day at work,” said Shannon Thompson, promotions manager at NIFB. “Moreover, Avnet has participated in NIFB’s annual Hunger Scramble golf event the past few years.  For these generous efforts and more, we have chosen Avnet to receive our Volunteer Corporation of the Year Award.” 

Avnet donates $2,000 for two par sponsorships at the Hunger Scramble. Eleven Avnet employees participate regularly in the monthly visits, with another 10 often joining them during the year. Several bring members of their families with them, and have also drafted representatives from manufacturers who work with Avnet.

“Although we have been compared to Lucy and Ethel sorting chocolates on I Love Lucy or the Michelin tire mascot in our volunteer t-shirts, Avnet’s Chicago team enjoys its work at NIFB and leaves looking forward to the next time,” said Pat Lyons, the Avnet Electronics Marketing account manager who initially organized Avnet’s volunteer efforts at NIFB. “We value the relationship we have established with NIFB and its staff – we have even made them honorary members of our Avnet team.”

About Avnet
With more than 250 locations serving customers in 70 countries, Avnet markets, distributes and adds value to the products of the world's leading electronic component suppliers, enterprise computer manufacturers and embedded subsystem providers. Additionally, Avnet brings a breadth and depth of service capabilities, such as supply-chain optimization, logistics solutions, product assembly, device programming, computer system integration and engineering design assistance. For the fiscal year ended July 1, 2006, Avnet generated revenue of $14.25 billion. Visit www.avnet.com/.

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