EDUCATING TOMORROW’S INDUSTRY LEADERS
Ben and Alicia recently met up with AITC CEO Mark Hands and his Executive Assistant Sandy Stegman. “I love how helpful and connected everyone at the AITC is, even years after graduating,” says Alicia. She and her business are still very much connected to the AITC, even taking on a young person from the Gold Coast campus for work experience in August. “It’s come full circle!” says Alicia, who is usually a one woman show at Little Cocoa. “It’s been great to have another set of hands, and the placement has enabled her to learn quite a bit about chocolate, and get some well-rounded experience working in a small business.” While the pandemic did mean Little Cocoa took a hit, Alicia says business is picking up again. “We are working towards and planning for Christmas now. We do a lot of orders for corporate businesses around Christmas time, as well as directly selling to customers.” “Before the pandemic hit, I had done a lot of leg work to provide businesses with gifts for speakers at their conferences, but of course those events were all cancelled,” says Alicia. “But business is getting back to normal, I have been getting orders ready for Father’s Day, and I am looking toward a busy period at Christmas.” At the end of Term 2, a special thank you gift - a box of chocolate bark made by Little Cocoa - was sent to all current parents, new families, staff, Board members and members of the company to say thank you for their trust and partnership with the AITC. The aim of the initiative was to show gratitude
to our community, who have been supportive of one another and the College during these extraordinary times, and the community response was very positive. “It was important that we thanked our families and staff for their support through a very significant time, which included the move to learning from home. And what better way than to do this with an AITC alum’s business.” “We received such wonderful feedback from our community and it was great to see so many parents share about the experience on social media,” said Head of Brand and Customer Experience, Nicole de Vries.
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