SanMar strives to make a difference in the communities where we source our products. One of our sourcing facilities in Sri Lanka is located next to a school. During factory visits, several SanMar team members connected with the school and the students, who wanted to practice their English and entertain their American visitors.

As the team’s relationship with the students deepened, SanMar employees realized that they wanted to do something special for the school. They learned that many of the students were in need of something very familiar to SanMar: backpacks. The team decided to buy backpacks for the students, with an initial goal to collect 35 new bags for one classroom.

Wanting to join in making a difference to the students, the sourcing, compliance, merchandising, purchasing, custom apparel and QA teams joined forces to raise money to buy even more backpacks. In total, the teams raised enough to buy brand new bags for each of the 338 students in the school.

In October, several SanMar team members delivered the backpacks to the students while on a visit to the Sri Lanka facility. There was a huge event to mark the occasion with dancing, traditional celebrations and much thanks to the team. It was a simple way for SanMar team members to easily make a difference and give back for a great cause!