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I would like to nominate St. Croix Chocolate Company. Although our small business is hardly corporate with just $350,000 in annual revenue and six employees – and located in a village of 679 people-- we see our small size as an advantage to help magnify the positive effects we can have. In short, to us, it’s personal.
Since our founding in 2010, we have initiated and hosted numerous free events for our community, cleaned up the highway, sponsored a girls' running team, worked with dozens of artists to promote their work, and donated our product – fine chocolate -- to literally thousands of fundraisers. This year we took our community engagement even further.
When we read that our state, Minnesota, had welcomed the second-most Ukrainian war refugees in the U.S., St. Croix Chocolate Company owners and staff wanted to make a personal connection.
We reached out to Alight, a non-profit organization that connects refugee families with sponsor families who assist with housing, employment and paperwork. We offered to open our shop and guide families in our specialty: hand-decorating chocolate eggs and molding chocolate bunnies, which we sent home with them, free of charge.
We welcomed several Ukrainian families over four class sessions. Although it was a very busy time for our shop, our staff agreed it was important to make the time to share our passion with as many families as possible.
Alight scheduled the families, got them transportation to our shop and provided a translator. Our staff learned how to say "Welcome" in Ukrainian, showed everyone how to use edible, colored cocoa butter to decorate molds, and fill them with chocolate. We guided everyone as they poured liquid chocolate into silicone molds of bunnies and hamsters.
To kids, painting with cocoa butter was no different than finger painting, and even the youngest child excelled at self expression. A little Ukrainian girl stopped crying and started using foam stamps with the colors. Her older sister eagerly tried her hand molding bunnies and even using chocolate to “glue” the eggs together. A little boy, in the U.S. for just six weeks, pointed to the bright chocolate eggs and correctly said in English all the colors he saw. Parents smiled as they decorated their own eggs with Ukrainian flag colors and flowers. When our staff showed everyone how to remove their critters from the molds, the Ukrainian and sponsor families cheered. By the time we packed up their chocolate creations for them to take home two hours later, we knew them as fathers and mothers, auto mechanics, graphic designers, and third-graders. We knew them as friends.
Our little staff led well. Everyone stepped a little out of their comfort zone to share our passion. We got confidence, and a sense of being part of something bigger than ourselves. And these families gave us the gift of trusting us to share chocolate with them. What we did is a small, good thing. What they did was a big thing.
Nomination Title: St. Croix Chocolate Company -- A small, good thing
