2020 DI Holiday Gift: Focusing on our employees and small businesses

At Discovered Intelligence we are always excited to enter into the holiday season as an opportunity to celebrate our employees contributions to a successful year by connecting with everyone over a big holiday dinner and surprising them with fun, and cool, holiday gifts. Over the past years these holiday gifts have generally consisted of technology focused gifts sourced from major e-commerce sites like Amazon or BestBuy.

Well, after all of the challenges faced as a business and a society throughout 2020, we decided to take a little bit of a different approach to this seasons employee holiday gift by setting our focus on supporting small businesses and, our most important asset, our employees.

Locally sourced products from the Niagara Region of Ontario.
An extra week of vacation in 2021 for each employee.

As you can see from the pictures above, for this seasons holiday gift we carefully crafted a gift bag for each of our employees, sourcing products from various small businesses around the Niagara Region, just outside of Toronto, to make up a very tasty and warm (it’s Canada after all) gift bag. The gift bag was finished off with the one thing we felt each of our amazing employees could use most in 2021, more time to connect with family and friends, therefore each employee has received an additional week of vacation for 2021.

Read on to find out more about each item in our employee holiday bag and the small business they came from. We urge everyone to please not forget to continue to support small businesses in 2021!

Discovered Intelligence Hoodie
o  Sourced from A & E Custom Apparel in Vineland, Ontario
o  A & E is a local business that provides custom apparel and gifts to individuals and businesses. All work is done in-house. They provide embroidery, direct to garment printing, sublimation, heat vinyl and screen printing services.
o  https://www.aecustom.net/

Sour Cherry and Peach Jams
o  Sourced from Southridge Jam Co in Vineland, Ontario
o  The Southridge Jam Co. is a social enterprise in Niagara that provides individuals who have recently experienced homelessness the opportunity to develop job training and life skills. The jam is made by formerly homeless using locally grown fruit that is donated by farmers.
o  https://southridgejam.com/

Wildflower Honey
o  Sourced from Rosewood Estates Winery in Beamsville, Ontario
o  Having 88 years of family beekeeping experience, all honey is made locally using innovative and sustainable practices to maintain healthy and productive hives. Keeping our bees happy and healthy is their top priority.
o  https://www.rosewoodwine.com/

Dark Chocolate Cherries
o  Sourced from Cherry Lane farm in Vineland, Ontario
o  Since 1907, Cherry Lane has been providing tart cherries, tart cherry juice concentrate, and a variety of other fruit products to consumers. The members of the Smith family, who own and operate Cherry Lane, have always been proud to be Ontario fruit farmers.
o  https://cherrylane.net/

Parmesan & Rosemary Shortbreads
o  Sourced from Provisions Food Company in Beamsville, Ontario
o  In 2012, Lori McDonald decided to combine her background with her passion for the vineyards, orchards, and farms of the beautiful Niagara growing region of Canada. What began as Lori canning jams in her kitchen has grown into a talented and passionate team making Provisions Food Company products in their own production facility.
o  https://provisionsfoodcompany.com/

Maple Syrup and Kettle Corn
o  Sourced from White Meadows Farms in St Catharines, Ontario
o  Made from maple trees and locally-grown corn, White Meadows Farms has been around since 1937. They craft the very best maple syrup from the sap they collect from over 150 acres of sugar bush in Niagara. The popping corn is harvested from their own 2.5 acres worth of cobs.
o  https://whitemeadowsfarms.com/


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