Sysco Labs Sri Lanka resumed its community initiatives in 2022, which were previously curtailed by the lockdowns, including its flagship program, ‘Share a Meal. Share a Moment’ which was launched in 2020.
Last year, Sysco Labs completed five phases of ‘Share a Meal. Share a Moment’ which was created to support the food and nutrition requirements of people in need. Sysco Labs is the captive innovation centre for Sysco Corporation, an international food service company. ‘Share a Meal. Share a Moment’ was inspired by Sysco’s sustainability goal of providing 200 million meals to underprivileged communities.
The Sysco Labs team persevered to provide over 24,000 meals and 3,500 rations packs to communities in different parts of the country including the Colombo, Galle, Gampaha and Kandy districts, despite hyperinflation and fuel shortages causing disruption of deliveries and difficulties in sourcing.
General Manager, Sysco Labs Sri Lanka, Rasika Karunatilake said, “We are committed to supporting Sysco’s purpose of ‘Connecting the world to share food and care for one another’, and all our initiatives are conducted in line with its goals. It was encouraging to see how all our associates came together to donate and volunteer their time to ensure we were able to care for our communities.
“It was a challenging year for the country but despite different obstacles, I’m proud of the effort that our team has put in to meaningfully impact our communities in Sri Lanka,” he said.
There were several employee-led community initiatives which included projects that donated medicines, school supplies and infrastructure to hospitals and schools in need around the country last year.
In August, Sysco Labs’ Hybrid Cloud Operations team from the Platform Services and Digital Services Business Unit organised a donation drive to support the Maharagama Apeksha Cancer Hospital and in September, Commercial Technology and Digital Services Business Units donated a library and books to schoolchildren in Dickoya.
The Workday team from the Corporate Technology Business Unit, provided school supplies to the Dorawaka Mahasen K.V School in Warakapolain October and the Platform Services and Digital Services Business Unit led a donation drive to fund school supplies and rebuild two classrooms at the Atabaga Udagama Maha Vidyalaya in December.