South Philly Review

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Many famous faces have graced cereal boxes, including Michael Jordan, Mary Lou Retton and Willie Mays. Once the pinnacle of stardom, it is still an honor bestowed on a select few. One of those people is Amanda Frattari.

“I think it’s really cool — that is something that not a lot of people are able to do,” the 17th-and-Ritner streets resident said of her current cameo on the back of a Cheerios box. “When [my boss] asked if I wanted to do it, I was so excited. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

The ShopRite of Snyder Plaza employee — who celebrated her one-year anniversary last week — was one of two workers selected to represent the 29 Snyder Ave. supermarket for the success of a six-week long contest as part of ShopRite Partners In Caring.

As a charity that annually supports hunger relief and nutrition programs throughout select Eastern-seaboard states, ShopRite Partners In Caring kicked things up a notch to honor September National Hunger Awareness Month with a six-week contest. Forty-three ShopRite stores were tasked with selling $1 donation cards to patrons upon checkout. Frattari was the second-highest grossing employee on Snyder Avenue behind Southwest Philly’s Teresa Smith.

“I’m not really sure [how much I raised],” the 17-year-old said. “All together we raised about $2,500. I asked every single person to buy one and by the time I started I was already on the register for five months and I had my regulars who would come in. So, they would buy them.”

The $2,500 raised locally was put in the nearly $500,000 pot accumulated from the contest and will be distributed to sanctioned charities of ShopRite Partners In Caring. Since the not-for-profit’s inception in 1999, a long-standing partnership has persisted between the supermarket and key partner General Mills. Subsequently, a limited edition Cheerios box featuring 86 select employees — two from each participating market — will be carried in ShopRite stores through March.

“My mom bought like 16 of them,” Frattari said of the boxes featuring her likeness. “We have family in Ohio and they don’t have ShopRite out there, so she got them to give away.

“She’ll probably keep a few.”

Frattari, however, was handed a plexiglass-incased Cheerios box with a plaque on the front with her name engraved. The picture featuring the 86 employees standing next to a Photoshop-inserted dirt road with the title “Leading the way to end hunger” was printed on the back of 150,000 signature yellow breakfast boxes. In addition, each participating supermarket was given $1,000 to donate to a hunger charity of its choice.

“I think [the contest] is awesome. I would love if I could actually afford to give $50 out of my paycheck to go buy food for these people; I would,” Frattari said. “I’m so proud of myself that I was able to do that and actually help people.”

THE SENIOR AT Neumann-Goretti, 1736 S. 10th St., is set to graduate this June. With acceptances and scholarship offers to multiple schools, the history fanatic has narrowed it down to two frontrunners.

“I’m picking between Widener and Lock Haven,” Frattari, who is paying for school herself, said. “Lock Haven is far away, it’s like three hours out of the city and I need to get out of the city.”

The ShopRite gig is the teenager’s first real job, and one she took to help finance her extra expenses — like a May senior trip to the Bahamas and her aunt’s upcoming nuptials in Cancun, Mexico — and then eventually her long-term education goals.

“I want to be a lawyer and law school is going to cost me a fortune,” Frattari said.

The price tag is an obstacle but far from a deterrent, as the dream was set long before finances could sway the ambitious young girl.

“In about the second grade, I watched ‘Legally Blonde’ and I fell in love with being a lawyer,” Fratari said of the 2001 movie starring Reese Witherspoon about a ditzy fashion-merchandising major who takes Harvard Law School by storm. “Then I started watching law stuff.

“I’m not really sure what type of lawyer. I’ll probably end up going into prosecution and I want to get in to family law.”

For now, the Mock Trial club president and Spanish club secretary is putting in after-school and extensive weekend hours on the ShopRite registers to help make her dream a reality. Part of that dream includes broadening her horizons and stepping outside her comfort zone.