Sodexo pledge becomes largest signing to date

Sodexo Food Services’ more than 200 employees pose for a group photo after taking the Håfa Pledge of the Guam Visitors Bureau. (Contributed Photo)

In an unprecedented ceremony last Wednesday at the Sheraton Laguna Resort, more than 200 employees of Sodexo Food Services became the newest members of the Guam Visitors Bureau’s Håfa Pledge Program. The ceremony coincided with the company’s new employee orientation, where employees came together as a team to prepare for the new school year.

During the ceremony, resident district manager Michael Schnitger noted to his team that the company decided to take this pledge at this time in the school year to embrace the culture, be able to share and teach it to the students and to foster the hospitality of the culture into their daily operations.

Sodexo has been serving school lunches for Guam Department of Education schools for the past five years and expects to serve almost 23,000 meals daily to Guam’s schoolchildren for a total of about four million meals in the coming school year.

Sodexo included the following as part of its pledge:

• Continue to find opportunities to incorporate healthy versions of favorite local foods into the school menus, in addition to the Chamorro month and Lenten special menus we have in place. We will serve these healthy meals to our school children, teachers and administrators with the same warmth, care and hospitality that can be found in our home kitchens.

• Strive to treat each other and those we serve as family and to work together with the same kindness and respect that our culture is known to exude.

• Partner with other community organizations to help keep our island clean and beautiful.

• Support the overall goal of helping to make Guam a better place to live, work and visit for the schoolchildren we serve, the visitors who visit our island and for each other.

The Håfa Adai Pledge program is the cornerstone of the Guam Visitors Bureau’s local community branding campaign. In its seventh year, the Håfa Adai Pledge program has grown steadily in the number of participants as well as the commitment of individual pledges.

In March of 2016, GVB reached a significant milestone, welcoming its 600th pledge, representing more than 32,500 individuals from private businesses, government agencies, non-profits and other organizations that have joined the Håfa Adai Pledge program.

For more Information, call GVB public information officer Josh Tyquiengco or 646-5278 email him at josh.tyquiengco@visitguam.org.