The Sandals Foundation: Celebrating 15 Years and A Million Milestones

At first glance, the number sounds a little … optimistic. The Sandals Foundation has reached a million milestones in its first 15 years? If you consider one life a milestone, then the answer is, “Absolutely.”

But a number is finite. The value of one helping hand is not. How do you quantify the impact of a healthier ocean on hundreds of communities that depend on it? Can you really calculate the long-term meaning when kids on Caribbean playgrounds are as excited about reading and recycling as they are about kicking a soccer ball?

What about their kids and their grandkids?

“We’ve been blessed with beautiful mountains, rivers, and beaches,” says Adam Stewart, Executive Chairman of Sandals Resorts International, Founder of the Sandals Foundation, and proud child of the islands. “But even within the beauty, people still need a little lift. We believe every person deserves to feel empowered.”

It sounded like a tall task when Stewart officially launched the Sandals Foundation in 2009. Every person? "But that's the interesting thing about home: when it's your roots and your backyard, the speed of impact and change can't be matched."

You can see it spreading all across the Caribbean, from schools to hospitals, from forests to beaches, from the well-traveled towns to the distant mountain villages. You see hope in the form of joy. And that’s how this all started for the Sandals Foundation 15 years ago: with a few smiles.

The First Milestones

Go up a rugged rural road, narrowing to a single lane, an hour from Sandals Montego Bay to the village of Somerton, Jamaica. If you came here prior to 2009, you were probably looking for the home of legendary musician Jimmy Cliff or you were lost. Employees of Sandals, however, knew of a great need in a region that many of them call home: dental care.

“Dental care and eye care is extremely expensive here in Jamaica and other Caribbean islands,” says Sandals Foundation ambassador Ian Spencer. “It was so expensive that many people were beginning to face dental infections or weren't equipped with the proper vision prescriptions, which could make landing a good job difficult.”

That’s why, among its first initiatives, the Sandals Foundation partnered with Great Shape! Inc to provide free dental and eye care to people in the farthest reaches of Jamaica, like Somerton, and the most accessible destinations, like Negril. Volunteer dentists and hygienists would see hundreds of patients in a single day.

“Some of these people probably hadn’t smiled in years and now they can light up a room,” Spencer says. Over the past 15 years, nearly 300,000 people in the Caribbean have received free dental and eye care through Great Shape! Inc, bringing light to entire communities.

That same year, the Sandals Foundation laid another building block of optimism. This one actually traces back to the construction of the first Sandals Resort, Sandals Montego Bay, when Sandals Resorts International Founder Gordon "Butch" Stewart, Adam Stewart's father, went into underserved neighborhoods and told residents about his dream of offering travelers Caribbean luxury that had never been seen. The people followed him into Montego Bay and helped him build the resort in 1981. With the extra bricks, he helped them build a health clinic in the community of Flanker, Jamaica.

Word about Sandals began to spread on the same strong wings as hope.
“People in Caribbean communities have a special trust for Sandals and its Foundation because the region is our home, we have a deep and personal understanding of the communities and their needs and a genuine desire to empower the region and its people,” Adam Stewart says. “I think what surprised people the most in the beginning was our consistency. When we commit to a community, we stay with it and become part of the thread that holds it together.”

And so, in that first official year of the Sandals Foundation in 2009, it made sense to develop a community center in Flanker, with mentoring, lessons in music and entrepreneurship, and a vivid path to a promising future.

“We never had to convince anyone to join our efforts,” says Sandals Foundation executive director Heidi Clarke, a fifth-generation Jamaican. “The team members at Sandals Resorts and Beaches Resorts live in these communities. And when guests found out what we were doing beyond the resorts, they started to ask how they could get involved, too.”

Raising the Pillar of Education

Guests of Sandals and Beaches typically have plenty of luggage space around their swimsuits and open blocks of time between beachcombing and dining.

“Every other day, someone would ask what they could bring with them on their vacation or if they could see a local school,” Clarke says. “That’s what sparked the idea for Reading Road Trips.”

In 2011, the Sandals Foundation began taking guests out to read books with students in nearby schools, where they also discovered that the pure joy of the Caribbean extends from the beaches to the classrooms. Singalongs, storytelling, and laughter became cherished vacation memories. That same year, the Sandals Foundation partnered with Pack for a Purpose, providing resort guests with lists of needs specific to each destination. Guests can pack extra supplies that they may have around their homes and donate them to local schools by dropping them off at the resort front desks. Together, guests and team members have supported 2,290 schools since then and donated — among other items — nearly 300,000 books.

There is no way to count the sets of eyes that have been on those books or how many kids have completed formal education or adopted the love of literature because of them.

“Each dollar that a guest or corporation donates carries tremendous power, too,” Stewart says. “When we launched, it was a no-brainer that every penny would go directly to the communities we serve. With all the operational costs of the Sandals Foundation covered by Sandals Resorts International, merely being a guest of Sandals and Beaches makes a difference.”

With support growing, the milestones piled up for the Sandals Foundation. Among them:
A partnership with Hasbro to supply Christmas toys for children. The expansion of a scholarship program, dubbed Care for Kids, which has offered hundreds of students a bridge to high school and college. Collaboration with Hands Across the Sea to create children’s libraries on islands across the region. A partnership with the SickKids Caribbean Initiative to provide access to complimentary and potentially life-saving healthcare for children with cancer and blood disorders. Then, with financial assistance from Coca-Cola Latin America, the Sandals Foundation and the National Education Trust created water catchments and sanitation systems for seven schools in Jamaica.

Each milestone would touch countless lives and also fan a burning question for Stewart, Clarke, and staff members: “How can we do more?”

For the next Sandals Foundation milestones, they would address an enormous challenge outside every window in the Caribbean.

Spreading Hope for the Environment

Anyone who works at Sandals and Beaches can share childhood stories about playing near the Caribbean’s pristine waters, resting in the shade of tropical trees, gathering around seafood-rich meals, hiking to waterfalls, and even fishing in the sea. Stewart remembers coming home to Jamaica after traveling abroad for extended periods and noticing how the water was changing. He talked with friends in coastal communities where the numbers and sizes of fish seemed to be dwindling. In 2013, the Sandals Foundation came alongside fishermen near Sandals Ocho Rios to establish the Boscobel Special Fishery Conservation Area. A year later, the foundation did the same thing with the Whitehouse Special Fishery Conservation Area near Sandals South Coast on the opposite side of the island.

“Local ambassadors for the foundation listened to our concerns and helped us turn things around,” says a fisherman named Diego, who would become an ambassador himself. Within 18 months, the fish biomass in both areas had increased and vibrant colors returned to the reefs. “The foundation truly understands our needs and cares about us and the ocean. That’s why their efforts work.”

The same heartfelt care was evident in 2017 when Sandals Foundation volunteers helped restore an untold number of lives through 14 relief projects following Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Yet, in the storms’ aftermath, they also moved forward in partnership with CLEAR Caribbean to establish coral nurseries in St. Lucia, where thousands of livelihoods depend on a marine environment that’s resilient to climate change and natural disasters.

“You have to remember our islands are small and remote,” says Stewart, “so sustainability is a huge necessity for our healthy future.”

Over the last 15 years, the foundation has planted 27,333 trees across the Caribbean, escalated work to protect mangrove habitats, helped safely lead 193,565 baby sea turtles to shorelines, out-planted 33,656 coral fragments, and launched its Ocean Connect program, a project that teaches local islanders swimming skills so they can experience the joy of the ocean right outside their backyard.

In 2021, the foundation helped develop the first environment-focused curriculum for primary schools in the Bahamas. On the north shore of Jamaica, the Save Our Seas Program is inspiring high school students to pursue one of the most personal and meaningful careers imaginable — marine biologists in the Caribbean.

“When you fall in love with something, you’ll do anything to preserve it,” says Stewart. And that leads to a milestone among milestones: the identification of the most important influencers for the next 15, 50, and 100 years. “Children have the most crucial voices to ensure the Caribbean flourishes.”

“We know that everything in the Caribbean — the ocean, the islands, and the people — is woven into a single tapestry,” says Stewart, “and it’s our duty to do all that we can to keep it beautiful.”

The touchpoints from 15 years of Sandals Foundation milestones are literally everywhere. The benefits are immeasurable.

See the soccer goals on school fields in Curacao? They’re created with plastic collected from beach clean-ups through the Future Goals Program. The hand-woven sun hats, gorgeous cheese blocks, and candle holders at the gift shops? People in the hills and along city streets now make a living using sustainable materials with guidance from the Sandals Artisan Program. How about the ladies whose dreams have been renewed after escaping harsh situations and recapturing them selves through the foundation’s work with Women Helping Others Achieve (WHOA)? The potential impact of even one empowered life is as limitless as the Caribbean horizon.

The sea turtle population is rising. Farms are supporting communities with healthy foods and incomes. And nearly 2,000 children and teenagers on the islands epitomize the very meaning of hope: born prematurely in hospitals where equipment donated by the Sandals Foundation provided them a chance at a healthy and empowered life.

A milestone at the forefront of the next 15 years will be a commitment to harness the blessed Caribbean sunshine into solar power, making energy more efficient, affordable, and sustainable, ensuring the islands are equipped and thriving for generations, coined The Power of 15.

Could there really be a million-plus milestone? Yes, easily. And a million more are still to come.

“Honestly, we had no idea how big this would become,” says Stewart. “We planted a seed 15 years ago and everyone helped water it. That’s why we know there’s nothing we can’t do.”