BOSTON -- The Public Relations Society of America recently presented its Silver Anvil award to Boston-based public relations agency Clarke & Company for having the year's best corporate community relations program.

The coveted award was presented to Clarke & Company and its client, Carpet One, for an in-school theatrical program that has reached 250,000 elementary school children in the U.S. and Canada over the past two years.

"Winning a Silver Anvil is the Olympic Gold of public relations," said Clarke Chairman and founder Terry Clarke. "We compete with the world's largest public relations agencies and corporations, and with their budgets -- which are often enormous. Winning a Silver Anvil under any circumstances is a fete, but for a five-person team from an independent agency to win one is a David and Goliath."

The Clarke & Company team created the Carpet One Magic Carpet Time Tour in response to research it conducted with 700 Carpet One-member storeowners. Carpet One is North America?s largest carpet retail group.

The award-winning traveling literacy program uses live actors and storytelling. Children in kindergarten through second grade receive free storybooks and "magic carpets" -- carpet samples that members would otherwise discard -- to sit on during the program and keep for future activities. Three troupes of actors have crisscrossed the country, visiting children in every state in the U.S. and in Canada.

Clarke & Company has won seven other Silver Anvil Awards in the agency's 25-year history.