What Is the Sandals Foundation?

by Lacey Pfalz
Last updated: 9:00 PM ET, Mon June 3, 2024

Sandals has been welcoming travelers to its resorts throughout the Caribbean for more than 40 years, and it’s been giving back to local communities through its Sandals Foundation for the past 15 years.

As the foundation celebrates its fifteenth anniversary this year, let’s learn about the impact the Sandals Foundation has had over the past fifteen years, and about its new program, The Power of 15.

The Sandals Foundation focuses upon three strong pillars: protecting the environment, supporting the local communities in which Sandals offers its resorts and championing equal opportunities to education throughout the Caribbean.

The Environment

The first pillar of the Sandals Foundation is protecting the environment. Through the foundation, Sandals helps to protect 19 marine and terrestrial areas across the Caribbean. It planted over 30,000 corals in collaboration with numerous grassroots organizations, planted over 27,000 trees and helped hatch nearly 200,000 sea turtles.

According to the foundation’s 2022 annual report, initiatives include planting and maintaining 7,000 trees in the UNESCO-designated Blue and John Crow Mountains of Jamaica; a community-led coral reef restoration in Grenada with the Grenada Coral Reef Foundation; and the support for the CARMABI Hiking Trail app for Curaçao’s seven trails and four national parks in three languages for greater accessibility.

The Community

The Sandals Foundation’s second main pillar is supporting the local communities in which its resorts are located. Far beyond simply providing employment, the foundation has helped support over 355,000 individuals through medical initiatives alone.

The foundation’s 2022 report highlighted initiatives supporting local communities, such as Grenada’s Under Grenrop’s Wings initiative. This sustainable farming initiative is led by 65 women farmers, who train young adults and the incarcerated to provide locally grown produce in Grenada.

Healthcare is another important aspect of helping support communities, and in 2022, one such initiative was investing $50,000 to join a collection of a network of organizations in Jamaica helping to purchase 40 ventilators for the island’s hospitals.

Education for All

The last key pillar of the Sandals Foundation is education. From providing training opportunities for locals to grow their skills to donating important technology to schools across the Caribbean, the foundation has been impacting thousands of students across the region.

It’s donated over 6,000 computers and digital devices to schools; donated nearly 300,000 books and positively impacted the education of over 350,000 students through initiatives like the “Let it Grow” School Program in Turks & Caicos, which donated irrigation infrastructure and hydroponics systems to public and private schools in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Agriculture, which both provides greater food security and increases knowledge and interest in agriculture as a career for students.

Another initiative is support of a 2-year music program for Exuma’s LN Coakley High School students, along with an after school band program to encourage the knowledge and practice of music.

The Power of 15

This month, in honor of the fifteenth anniversary of the Sandals Foundation and for Caribbean Heritage Month, the foundation is donating $15 for every donation of $15 or more, 100 percent of which goes towards installing solar panels in schools across the Caribbean.

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