Flagship program ‘Share a Meal. Share a Moment’ touches nearly 40,000 lives
January 23, 2023: 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.
In 2022, Sysco LABS completed 5 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 center for Sysco Corporation, the world’s largest foodservice company. ‘Share a Meal. Share a Moment’ was inspired by Sysco’s sustainability goal of providing 200 million meals to underprivileged communities.
Despite hyperinflation and fuel shortages causing disruption of deliveries and difficulties in sourcing, 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.
Reflecting on the company’s community empowerment efforts in 2022, Rasika Karunatilake, General Manager at Sysco LABS Sri Lanka, 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.”
2022 also featured several employee-led community initiatives which included projects that donated medicines, school supplies and infrastructure to hospitals and schools in need around the country. In August, Sysco LABS’ Hybrid Cloud Operations team from the Platform Services & Digital Services Business Unit organized 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 school children in Dickoya.
In addition, the Workday team from the Corporate Technology Business Unit, provided school supplies to the Dorawaka Mahasen K.V School in Warakapola in October and the Platform Services & Digital Services Business Unit led a donation drive to fund school supplies and rebuild two classrooms at the Atabaga Udagama Maha Vidyalaya in December.
In all, it was a year of caring and community commitment which everyone at Sysco LABS aims to continue in 2023.