& Ashley Paoli
Anguilla (AXA) Cares, which has been donating food supplies to some 150 deprived families across the island since its formation in 2011, has received a significant boost from a United States incentive group, BriovaRx.
Two representatives of the company, Ms. Ashley Paoli and Ms. Thecla Woolcott, spoke to The Anguillian newspaper at Santorini [Restaurant] at the Club House, part of the Resort and Residences by CuisnArt. There, an abundance of displayed grocery items, purchased by the company from various Anguilla supermarkets, were later packed in bags for distribution to AXA Cares for the families.
Ms. Paoli, the company’s main spokesperson, told The Anguillian: “BriovaRx is a specialty pharmacy and we have come to Anguilla to give back to the people of the island. We have three headquarters in Minnesota, Kansas and Chicago and operate just in the United States.”
Referring to the large stacks of grocery items, valued at several thousand US dollars, Ms. Paoli said: “This is a corporate services responsibility project for a charitable organisation that was in need of assistance. We identified the AXA Cares Food Bank, and a representative from that organisation will be here this morning to talk about the Food Bank. After that members of the group will break up into small teams. They will first participate in a small quiz, a final interactive session, and then they would be tasked with filling up grocery bags with the food staples we have here, and were identified by the AXA Cares Food Bank for the families registered by that organisation. This is a considerable contribution that BriovaRx is making not only to the AXA Cares Food Bank, but to Anguilla in general as a way of giving back to the community. This is an incentive programme for the BriovaRx employees for a great year of performance. While they are here enjoying the beauty, splendour, and all the activities in Anguilla, they also recognise that the island has gone through a difficult period, and they wanted to do something to give back to the community.”
Ms. Paoli said the group, comprised a hundred award-wining persons, as well as fifty employees to do the community service work.
Ms. Mimi Gratton, Director of Blue Sea, Anguilla, a destination Management Company, and her team were on hand, as the on-island partners, to assist the BriovaRx group with their logistics.
The representative, of whom Ms. Paoli spoke, was Anguillian community worker, Mrs. Blondell Rodgiers. Blondell told the group that she was the Coordinator for the AXA Cares School Food Bank. It was started on December 23, 2011, by Claudette Bryan and the late Charlotte Berglund and a few other persons. She told the visiting group that some of the families being assisted could not afford to send their children to school due to a lack of food. As a result the AXA Food Bank was started once a week with a food box for every family. Later on the Food Bank became financially strained resulting in the assistance being provided every two weeks. Since then it is now once a month. “At present, we have one donor who contributes on a monthly basis. So I am really happy to be here to see what is happening because your assistance is a great help to us,” Mrs. Rodgiers stated.
Miss Tiffany Rogers of Blue Sea, Anguilla, conducted a quiz competition for the group with various questions. Two of them were in what year was Hurricane Irma, and name five hurricanes that hit Anguilla since 1995.
It was after the quiz that the excited group packed the bags of groceries for the 150 families.
