To care is a St Lucia Electricity Services Limited (LUCELEC) Core Value as well as part of the company tagline, “The Power of Caring”.
It was the inspiration that led LUCELEC Senior Shift Operations Supervisor Nathanial Deterville and thirteen others from the Generation Department to volunteer at the Lady Gordon Opportunity Centre. Caring also inspired “Operation Shoe Box” – an initiative to provide school supplies to underprivileged children.
First, the Generation Department who for the past four years has volunteered at the Lady Gordon Opportunity Centre, pressure washing and preparing the grounds for the start of school continued that tradition and broadened its scope to include the Fond St Jacques Primary School this year.
“One of our core values at LUCELEC is caring, we wanted to multiply that to really show we care about our external friends,” says Mr Deterville.
HR Assistant Kedia Daniel was also led by ‘caring’ when she initiated “Operation Shoe Box” with ten other LUCELEC employees. The volunteer effort allowed LUCELEC staff members to donate school supplies and cash in a shoebox.
The donated items were presented to thirty-four (34) students from the Anse-la-Raye Infant, Anse-la Raye Primary, Canaries Infant, Bouton Combined, Les Entangs Infant School and Saltibus Combined School earlier this month.
“It was a learning and heart breaking experience. I realized that we work and can give our children everything they need while there are children who don’t even have notebooks or any other of what you would consider basic school supplies. We need to do “Operation Shoe Box” every year because just to see the children’s faces when they opened the boxes, made it all worth it and I would do it again in an instant,” says Ms Daniel.
LUCELEC staff members – including customers and security personnel from the Vieux-Fort Customer Service Office – contributed to the initiative.
Students from the Lady Gordon Opportunity Centre and Vieux-Fort Special Education Centre also received school supplies from “Operation Shoebox”.
