Page 180 - The Starbucks Experience

Leave Your Mark

For Starbucks leaders, serving communities often takes
them off the traditional path of Fortune 500 companies. San-
dra Taylor, senior vice president of Corporate Social Respon-
sibility, observes, “We have one effort with our Tazo division
and with Mercy Corps, where we are supporting projects in
24 villages in Darjeeling, India, a tea-farming area. One proj-
ect is to improve water and sanitation. Through efforts thus
far, the residents of the region have seen a 10 percent reduc-
tion in waterborne diseases. That’s huge for a coffee and tea
company!”
Sandra goes on to explain that the Darjeeling project also
offers vocational training to tea-farming families. “One thing
about tea farms is that there is only one child who gets to carry
on the family business. So whether you’re an owner or a
worker, there are children who have no employment within
tea, and in many cases no employment at all. We are helping 165
young men in the area learn skills like electronic equipment
repair. One young man asked, ‘Why would a coffee company
care about us and what we do?’ I think a better question would
be, ‘Why wouldn’t we?’ They are part of our community.”
Just how big is your “community”? Great leaders not only
grow their businesses, but in the process tend to expand their
concept of community. For Starbucks leadership, social
responsibility reflects a very broad sense of community. In
Singapore, Starbucks is leaving its mark by opening a store
that serves as a training arena for students’ work and life
skills. The store, called the Pathlight Café, is the first of its
kind in Singapore. Eight autistic adolescents between the ages
of 12 and 15 are being trained in the skills necessary to han-
dle money, serve customers, and make sandwiches. Denise
Phua, acting principal of the school, views Starbucks gen-
erosity as integral to the students’ developing “good skills,