Biscuits delivered with love
It is said that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but students from four primary schools in Yunnan province are getting free breakfast from Shanghai — in the name of love.
On the morning of Feb 28, 30,000 packs of belVita breakfast biscuits from Mondelēz China were loaded into a van. Over a five-day period, these biscuits were delivered 2,500 kilometers away to four primary schools in Honghe prefecture, Yunnan province.
The biscuits provided healthy, delicious nutrition to children in Honghe.
The breakfast biscuits on the delivery vehicle were only the first batch of donations made by 10 companies in Shanghai’s Xuhui district to support people living in Honghe, under the program “Help with Poverty Alleviation and Spread Love” initiated by the Hengfu Industrial Promotion Center under the Xufang Group.
The program was in response to the local government’s call for supporting Honghe prefecture. A total of 10 companies vowed to make donations to help local poverty-alleviation efforts.
“We can’t win the battle against poverty without the support of various parties in our society, especially without the involvement of socially responsible enterprises,” said Sun Xiaodong, director of the cooperation and exchange office of Xuhui district.
According to Sun, many companies in Xuhui district have participated in the program in recent years in Shanghai, including projects aimed at bridging ten thousands of companies and ten thousands of villages, and helping the companies in the area to sell their products in Shanghai.
“We can see the strong sense of social responsibility from these companies, as they want to give back to society,” Sun said.
The history of Shanghai supporting Yunnan province can date back to 1996. Last year, Honghe prefecture alone has received 51 million yuan ($8.1 million) through 20 projects from Shanghai, according to the official local government website of Honghe.
Following Mondelēz China, the other nine companies will also provide support to step up targeted poverty alleviation and elimination efforts.
“As Mondelēz employees, we have a responsibility of caring for the less fortunate, to give back to communities, and to make the world a better place,” said Fu Yue, vice-president of corporate affairs at Mondelēz China.
According to Fu, Mondelēz China realized that building a moderately prosperous society is the fundamental goal of socialism with Chinese characteristics. As a result, the company takes action in line with China’s various poverty alleviation and elimination initiatives.
“Our next plan is to bring the ‘Mondelēz Hope Kitchen’ program supported by the Mondelēz International Foundation to schools in regions where we provide one-to-one assistance. Addressing the nutrition and health problems of children in those regions is also our responsibility and vision,” Fu said.
“I sincerely hope that more companies will get involved in the poverty alleviation and elimination efforts, to help speed up the progress, and to enable more households to escape poverty and enjoy better lives as soon as possible. I hope that you can join hands with us to do a good job on this matter, to enable people living in poverty to really benefit from our efforts, to put companies in the spotlight for their charitable deeds, and to make new and bigger contributions on the journey of building a moderately prosperous society,” Sun said.