On December 17th 2022, Ms. Joy Simon, Lab Supervisor at the St Vincent Brewery Ltd (SVBL) and a team of SVBL employees distributed 40 food baskets and 9 grocery bags to individuals and families in need across St. Vincent and the Grenadines
This initiative came out of the Tell Us Their Story project, which came out of SVBL’s inaugural Leadership Retreat, held in February 2022. The Leadership Retreat is a team-building exercise for all SVBL managers, supervisors and team leaders.
At the Leadership Retreat, teams gather to discuss all aspects of the business, including plans, projects, and initiatives for the year, each project or initiative is given an owner and Strategies are then put in place on how each project will be executed.
Ms. Simon and her team came up with Tell Us Their Story, as a way of finding people in need in St Vincent & the Grenadines, through persons who know their stories the best. As owner of the Tell Us Their Story project, Ms. Simon wanted to create an initiative which honors the on-going commitment from SVBL to give back to the Vincentian community, this included the distribution of food baskets, toiletries and extra special gifts from SVBL to those in need, as part of SVBL’s community outreach.
The initiative was posted and promoted on the SVBL social media pages, and with the assistance of online media pages, persons were asked to submit stories identifying individuals and families they know are in need.
There was an enthusiastic response to the Tell Us Their Story social media posts, with stories pouring in as Ms. Simon and her team sourced and packaged baskets.
The response was so keen, that it bypassed the initial budget.
According to Ms. Simon “We wanted to respond to most, if not all of them, [so] we extended the budget. Our target was to distribute forty baskets, but we were able to add nine additional [grocery] bags.”
When asked if she felt the initiative was a success Ms. Simon said that “Overall, I think the project was a success and one that was necessary.”