RESIDENTS of Tiger Bay, Georgetown yesterday expressed deep satisfaction and heartfelt thanks to the Giftland Office Max, AINLIM and Escape Café for once again giving back to the community. Yesterday marked three years since Giftland Office Max began giving support to the community by providing families with items for back to school purposes and toiletries among other important household items.
Speaking with the Guyana Chronicle during the distribution process Marketing Manager, Giftland Office Max, Compton Bobb, said the store is always preparing for the future through investment and this includes helping the lives of those in need.
“We are always preparing for the future and of course the Tiger Bay community is very close to us and we really love them. This is our third annual donation event giving back to community,” he stated.
He said like many other charitable organisations out there, Giftland understands the importance of having an education in this continuously progressing world in order to survive.
As such it will take every step necessary to ensure that no child from that community is deprived of an education because of not having a school bag or book, etc.
“We really see the need for preparing ourselves properly in terms of having them prepared for back to school, we want to equip them to be ready for school, so we seek once again to impart into their lives,” he emphasized.
Some of the items that were distributed included school book bags, cardboard, and erasers, play dough, crayons, pens, staples, colouring books.
“Also personal items like soap, toiletries and so on. We also have here with us two other sponsors, AINLIM, and Escape Café who provided Thrill and Chubby and so on,” he added.
According to Bobb, Giftland Office Max over the years has sought to establish a relationship with the community members despite the stigma attached to the area.
“What we try to do is develop a relationship with them, and meet with them one on one and try to create a bond in a positive way; we try as much as possible to assist them in every way we can,” he stated
Meanwhile, Director of Human Resource for Giftland Office Max, Jade Beepat who is the brainchild of the initiative said that she believes the children are the future and an investment in this direction is a major step that will have positive end results.
Also she stated that since back to school cost can be so high, this initiative is a timely venture and will definitely bring some amount of relief to the parents in the Tiger Bay community.
“We definitely need to invest in the minds of them ….this is our third year giving back to the community, we understand that back to school costs are very high so we wanted to help the parents because we believe that education is very important for children’s development,” she stressed.