SWEET BEGINNINGS

SWEET BEGINNINGS // RAT Valentine

We had the great opportunity to visit a local farm near the O’Hare airport which produces honey. This place is exceptional because it gives people jobs and a chance to start a new life. Full of 4 500 bees kept in the backyard, the little production can be proud of itself. It doesn’t only produce fresh honey but it also offers to customers skin cares of quality. Maureen, the assistant manager explained us that proceeding that way was a chance for employees to get transferable skills. They touch to every domain, science for composition of products, marketing and customers relationships for local markets. The company is also a fervent defender of environment, using only fresh and bio products. Everything is “made home”. They have their own little tips to make bees produce more honey.

People who never had a job in their entire life can now discover something new and different. With 57% adults with a criminal background in the neighborhood, it is difficult to get out of this system. But they are still trying, putting the human side ahead the money. We didn’t meet a lot of employees who were there more than 1 year. It is because this company provides them training so they can find another job and let others enjoy the same chance they had. All of them are really proud to be part of this, and all of them realize how lucky they are. But still, even everything they’ve been through, they keep talking to you about their experience, with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen.

Actually, I kept talking how lucky they are, but I was the lucky to meet these amazing persons. 

Inside Google Chicago

By Jean-Baptiste Cornali

The Google's logo in the Google Chicago offices - @Flickr Google

We had the chance to visit a part of Google headquarters in Chicago. Or at least, the former headquarters because they will move very soon because they will move very soon, to the Fulton Market, area of the West Loop.

At Google Chicago, we met Matt Jones from the Team Lead area. He explained what Google is, in different parts.

Basically, Google is....

Google is now one of the largest multinational technology companies in the world. Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University, in their garage.

In fact, Google has a parent company called Alphabet ABC. Google has more than 70 offices around the world, with more than 54,000 employees  called "Googlers" and this increases more and more.

Google is also specialized in Internet-related services and products. In this way, it develops several digital and technologic products. As for example, AdWords or Bookmarks. But as you may already know, its first product is Search.

Inside Google Chicago....

The "Game Room" in the Google Chicago Offices - @Flickr Google

First impression. The office seems very relax and pleasing. As I saw in many documentaries, the office space is open and contains lots of things, lot of details that can make people more creative and efficient in their work.

There are places where people can work quietly, hold meetings, doing sport, eat.... For example, we saw a man walking on a treadmill while he was working on his computer. Also, we saw a space with hammocks where people can just relax, or another room where people can play to Ping-Pong or to foosball. Funny.

In the headquarters of Chicago, we can count around 700 employees, working on the sales side, on the tech side. They work with lots of companies in the world and create a wide range products and services, mainly focused on Search, Ads, and Technical Infrastructure. Matt Jones insisted about the fact they work a lot to keep users’ information safe and ensuring privacy.

Google and the mentoring....

"Google is a great opportunity to gain experience".
According to Matt Jones, mentoring in Google is the key to build and develop a professional experience. Google provides different favorable aspects to improve its mentoring. First it is a Leadership opportunities, for example there are more and more women and Google develop several leadership coaching. Then, It is a global rotation program. Every program is made to be the more attractive as possible. Also, inside there are team work working on special events. They work in depth with agencies and clients, to always enlarge their product list. Google has also established for the employees one day "off" per week, during which they don't have to work or doing something in relation with their work. So we can say that Google establishes a good mentoring process. Nice.

Basically, mentoring can be summarized in a single mentor-mentee relationship, exchanging advice, help, questions and learning. But the mentoring in Google is not only based on work, it is much more. For example, they organise holiday parties, visits to museums and team activities for their employees. And this is in like with the different installations in the offices. The objective is to make more creative and efficient the work. In this way, employees can go to the "game room" and play to several games.

To conclude, I would like to say that Google is a great place to work. There are great installations and the conditions seems perfect to work. But as Matt told us, it is not easy at all. You have a lot of works and it takes a lot of your personal time. If you work at the office, you often have to work at home. This visit of Google Chicago was interesting because it allows us to know more about how works a big multinational company as Google and how fun the offices can be arranged! Although, we felt that Google wanted to stay relatively "secret" of its operation. Matt Jones couldn't tell us everything. Besides, we were not allowed to take pictures inside the building. Also, I would like to say that Google built a global professional network, since its creation to today. And it will continue. This is the key of its success because this permits a process of developing and use contacts to increase business, knowledge, expand the sphere of influence or serve the community. That is why the community of Google is huge, and is considered today as one of the largest companies in the world.

Now, here is a a virtual tour of Google headquarters in Chicago, found on Youtube.

Voluntering for the love of honey !

By Sylvain Gardier

Dear readers,

We all know honey for its sweet taste and for its therapeutic effect. Honey is described as "the nectar of the gods, symbol of sweetness, love, happiness or longevity". I' m writing to share my experience in Sweet Beginning,  an experience sensitizing.


Let me introduce Sweet Beginning a West Side Company that extract honey from urban  hive. I think it has been the second time that I have a approached a hive from so close in my entire life .

They have 20 hive that can host 300 bees and let you calculate how much bees it could have in summer

The honey extracted is done with a delicate manner and is respectful of the environment.



Did I make your mouth watered ?

This is how honey is made: extraction of wax and then they break the holes and leave the honey flow ( this is a sentence that you can say in family dinner)


Here is the incredible aspect of Sweet Beginning. This company offers a great opportunity for area residents who have difficulties to find a first job. the company don't any backgrounds it just wan't to help people. We have the opportunities to met bees keeper and and to learn about their experiences in Sweet Beginning. They have all the same goal: make themselves a productive member of the society. Inside the company the team spirit could not be better, it is a full job program where they try the best to be ready to rework. The program is 90 days formation adapted where they learn many tasks such as extraction, labeling and production. Where maintaining is present: the sharing of knowledge and abilities and skills.  Therefore this program make them a multi-taskers and they are able to choose many works after their experience in Sweet Beginning: one Bee Keeper told me that she wanted to open her own business in the cooking area.

Where is volunteering acting in this business ?

Volunteering has many benefits:

•  Solve Problems: Sweet Beginning goal is to make fall social barriers to those who's background is issuing to find a job
• Improve Lives: One Bee Keeper said " I never thought working with bees but when I tell to friends they found it exciting". Most of the Bee Keeper have motivation for the future. Sweet beginning make them change their lives. 
• Connect to Others: thanks to Sweet Beginnings Business, many partnership are made with the fruit of it production, especially with restaurant that purchase their honey. The team effort is also reward by other company. For instance Sweet Beginning received a big check from the Bank of America for their work. Thanks to this money Sweet Beginning will be able to improve their place, to develop their professionalism and buy more equipment.  
• Transform Our Own Lives: the founder of this association Brenda Palms Barber might is satisfied of herself about the cause she is fighting for so it the other members of the team.

I hope you all understand the purpose of this article, by volunteering you can achieve amazing things. It opens you many doors and it is a key of succeeding in USA.
Dear readers I got to leave you, toasts or ready and I have to taste the honey given from Sweet Beginning.

Love, tenderness  and honey

When volunteering makes you successful

by Maëva BERGEON

“Every body deserves a second chance”, 

It was a statement used by a woman in reconversion, after her incarceration. Thanks to Sweet Beginnings, she is learning a job, like many other incarcerated individuals. Indeed, this company purposes a formation for offenders, and the employees are seriously trained and coached. Sweet Beginnings presents its natural skin and body care products beelove™ which are natural and made with honey. Employees make honey, work with the bees, and extract the honey. They make their products with respect of the environment too. 

This company is based on the volunteering and it’s really a success because it provides a job to ex-convicts for 90 days, and after that it’s easier to them to find a work.  Indeed, last year we know that 620 persons over 2000 found work after this training, it’s really great, because a lot of bosses refuse to employ ex-criminals. On the other hand, few people working for beelove™ never had formation or real job before, and for them it’s a second chance. It’s a successful transition-to-permanent-employment for formerly incarcerated individuals and others with significant barriers to employment, because beelove™ has only 3% of recidivism rate compared to the national average rate of 67%. These results are convincing when we know that 57% of the population in this area has a criminal background. In reality, beelove™ is implanted in North Lawndale, in the West of Chicago and we can see a lot of trashes in the street and next to the subway, with only few people. It’s a little bit like an abandoned and badly place, so the result of the recidivism for beelove™ is a real success! 

To practice of volunteering is very important to businesses in US, because it can help to develop contact and makes publicity. It helps people with time or money, and increases your business. You can enhance your skills, bolster employee morale and give back to your community. Thanks to the sales of this products in top boutiques and from its website, the company won $10 000 last year. Now it can employ more people. All ex-convicts said that were very happy to progress with beelove™, and after their formation, they would like to help other people like them. They think that can help to limit the discrimination about the background.  

    

How does volunteering make the difference in Business?

By Laure Hussein

Today volunteering can be one the most important part of a business especially in USA.

It’s pretty common mistake to think of volunteering as just something nice that people can do whereas, in fact it has many benefits and therefore, has a huge impact in business.

Let’s take the example of Sweet Beginnings, a West Side company I had the opportuny to visit with my class thanks to my teacher Valerie Beck. This small company makes the family of 

beelove^TM products, an all natural line of raw honey and honey-infused body care products. They extract their honey from their three natural apiaries to raise the bees. Its largest is at O’Hare International Airport. But the mission of Sweet Beginnings is not just to promote locally produced, natural honey-based products, it is to offer up a second chance to ex-convicts by giving them a chance to acquire valuable skills and start anew. For most this will not be a career ; they work with the bees just two and a half months and then try to find a job. 620 out of 2000 people who worked in the company last year get a job at the end.

“The idea behind it was to create jobs for men and women who have really been disconnected from the labor market, primarily because of their criminal backgrounds,” said Brenda Palms Barber, founder and CEO of Sweet Beginnings.

Since Sweet Beginnings started, fewer than 4 percent of its employees went back to prison compared to the national average rate of 67%.

In North Lawndale, a neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side, where they are implanted, more than 50 % of the population has a criminal background. Crime is rarely more than a street corner away. Besides, when I went there the thing which surprised me the most was that houses’s architecture is beautiful but most look empty.  

This company is a good example of a successful business based on volunteering and helping others. And apparently that makes a big difference. A part of their secret is their belief in people who can do good work and how they can help them doing more. Their success is also thanks to their good reputation with the high end quality of their product. 

An article was recently published in The Guardian about them and it shows how Volunteering can permit to win Publicity when you even didn’t think. Finally, they received a $200,000 check from Bank Of America as a volunteer gift.

“Most of our customers want a quality product – something that feels good and also does good,” Barber said.