School children in Jamaica, Antigua, Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas, and Saint Lucia have had the opportunity through the Sandals Foundation’s Reading Road Trip to interact with and learn from guests staying at Sandals, Beaches and Grand Pineapple Resorts. The Reading Road Trip is also a favourite among guests and families as they are given the opportunity to volunteer their time at schools in the Caribbean while lending literacy support.
The Reading Road Trip demonstrated the warmth of our guests and their desire to contribute to the educational experiences of the children they meet. Pack for a Purpose has been instrumental to providing another way for guests to be able to give back to our Caribbean communities.
Since its partnership with Pack for a Purpose, the Sandals Foundation has been the beneficiary of thousands of supplies for our 26 adopted schools across the Caribbean.
We have always been grateful for the support we have received over the years when guests pack up to five pounds, and many times more, of much-needed school supplies.
We would, however, like to highlight a group of travel agents – 100 of them to be exact – who not only packed for a purpose, but packed with the intention of providing the Sandals Foundation with some tools to enhance its latest education initiative – an early childhood stimulation program.
The agents were participating in the 4th Annual Home-Based Travel Agent Conference at Sandals Whitehouse European Village and Spa, and heard about the newly launched Project Sprout. Project Sprout is an intervention at the early childhood level that helps children better achieve their developmental milestones and reach their full potential. The initiative is a holistic one, focusing on parent engagement, teaching methods and the students’ learning environment.
The travel agents each packed a school bag with developmental material for parents and students enrolled in Project Sprout.
The donation was not only a much-appreciated boost to the program in terms of providing additional material for parents and children, but it also reminded us of how wonderful and important our partnerships with our guests and travel agents are – not that we ever need reminding – when it comes to sustaining our development programs.
We are now in our fifth year at the Sandals Foundation. That’s five years of building, preserving, enhancing and supporting; five years of partnerships with our guests, who are so intent on giving back to the beautiful Caribbean. Together, with Pack for a Purpose, we look forward to many more donations and wonderful stories such as this, as we work together to make a difference.