The Swanky Swine was created to “make change” in the lives of our students.

We believe that every person was created with a divine purpose and that each of us has the opportunity to “make change” wherever we happen to be.  We’re inspired by other individuals and organizations who work tirelessly and often sacrificially to transform lives.   We want to come alongside those people who are building bridges of hope out of hopeless situations.  We want to promote and support people who are “making change” all over the world.

We’ve donated some of our profits to help an orphanage in Thailand and a Cambodian orphan realize his dream to attend university. At this time, we’ve decided to give a portion of our store’s earnings to God’s Hope Primary School in Uganda.  You can read about this incredible organization and their mission below.  As we grow, we hope to support more non-profit organizations in different areas of the world.  We hope that this exercise will broaden our student’s worldview and teach them the importance of giving.

Making Change in Uganda

In 2010, a young woman named Simone heard about a school for orphans in Uganda that was about to shut it’s doors and immediately got involved. Simone knew that if no one stepped in, the students would no longer be able to receive the life changing opportunity to attend school.  In America, we are lucky that all children are provided an education regardless of their family’s economic situation. However, in many countries this is not the case.  In Uganda, without assistance, orphaned and poverty stricken children would never have the opportunity to learn to read or write.  Simone decided to do whatever she could to help this school keep it’s doors open. It was this commitment that birthed her organization, Simone’s kids.(www.simoneskids.com)

According to the Simone’s kids website, God’s Hope Primary school is a place “where poverty stricken children can receive an elite and valuable education.”

“We are opening the minds of children that have been handed nothing in life. We are providing beyond a child’s basic needs of food, water, education and love. We are providing children with the ability to see their world as an opportunity. We operate a school for 300 children, and are currently building somewhere for that school to take place. We also have plans to build homes for the children that have no where to live.”

Our donation will help build a new school for these special children. We are proud to give to an organization whose heart and mission so closely mirror our own.  Simone’s Kids is truly making change in Uganda as they educate and empower these beautiful children.

The Swanky Swine’s employees were so excited to be Hometown Hero’s on Fox 13 this past week.  In the midst of preparing for our Christmas program, making boxed lunches for the school and selling a crazy amount of pies, we received a call from Jennifer Epstein at Fox 13.  The students were thrilled for the opportunity to be on the news and to be “famous again.” When the huge Fox 13 news van pulled up they could barely contain their excitement and started jumping up and down.

Jen did a wonderful job and we are so proud of the story Fox 13 told.   All of us know individuals whose special talents and abilities are often overlooked.  We hope that people who watch this story are inspired to make change in their own communities.

If you missed the story you can watch it by clicking the link below:

Fox 13 News Story

This Christmas, buy a pie with a purpose. Our students are working hard to make delicious holiday pies. Each pie is handmade, and the profits support our growing transition program and the vocational training of our incredible students!  All pies are beautifully packaged and make great, meaningful gifts!

Click HERE to order your pies online!

Update 12/15/13  We sold way a lot more pies than we expected and had to stop taking orders. We had more demand than we could keep up with! I guess next year we’ll start baking earlier!

This summer we offered 5 weeks of summer school for our Swanky Swine employees.  Our goal was to offer our special needs students an opportunity to use their summer break to develop their vocational and life skills.  Every week we spend our classroom time talking about character development, nutrition, recipes and grocery planning and then we go on several field trips where we apply this knowledge to the real world.

One of our first trips was to Publix grocery store where the students did a Supermarket Challenge.  Grocery shopping is an important life skill. Our first task was to familiarize everyone with where things typically were. What would you find in the produce section? Where are hot dogs? What is the difference between bread in the bakery and in the aisle?

Each student was given a list of products and they had to work in teams to find each item and record the aisle and the price.  They spent a lot of time crisscrossing across the store and eventually they were able to find everything.  It was a great exercise.

After the activity was complete we did shopped for the ingredients we needed to make our lunch.

We’ve been doing a lot of cooking. The students love following recipes and making their own lunch.  So far we’ve made macaroni and cheese, hamburgers, potato salad, watermelon salsa, black bean salsa, squash, corn on the cob, zucchini  salad, BBQ Chicken and fruit salad.  Cooking is a not only an important life skill but also a great way to practice math, motor skills, and following directions.

Here are some of the delicious meals the students have made for themselves:

Exercise is an important part of every healthy lifestyle so we try to schedule some of that into every week as well.  We swim, walk at the park, swing and play catch.

Our first two weeks of summer school have been a lot of fun for everyone. We can’t wait for all of the fun we have planned over the next 3 weeks! We hope everyone is having a great summer!

Every month we pick an employee of the month.  The employee of the month is someone who works hard and meets or exceeds our employee expectations. These expectations include:

• following directions
• having a positive attitude
• practicing good customer service including making eye contact & smiling
• wearing a uniform when scheduled to work
• washing their hands before working and practicing proper food handling
• increasing knowledge of prices & products
• Making an effort to learn money math skills including adding purchases, making change and using a cash register

This month, Marlena Williams, was our employee of the month.

Marlena is one of our happiest employees. She is always smiling, joking and making everyone laugh.  She has learned a lot over the past year. She understands that to be a good employee, it is important to have a good attitude even if you might not feel like working.  She knows all of the store’s prices and can ring up purchases on our cash register.

Marlena said, “I like working at the Swanky Swine because I get to work with my friends.  I also really like wearing the shirt.  My favorite thing is doing the cashier so I can learn how to give out money to the customers.”

Marlena commented that the the hardest thing about work is “when the kids (the customers)  try to rush me and everybody wants this and that right now. It’s ok though,  I just say wait your turn and I’ll help you when I’m done.”

She also talked about how she learned to handle the stress of working a busy shift.  “When I’m stressed out I tell myself in my mind to stay calm and don’t worry and all that other stuff  and most of the time that helps.”

Congratulations Marlena!