Nourishment Campaign

Story by Sierra Simpson

DTEC Software (formerly known as distrib-u-tec) is a fully integrated ERP food industry specific accounting and operational based in BC created the initiative called the Nourishment Campaign. “This campaign is a celebration of being in business for 25 years and our ability to be able to give back to our community,” says June Nicolay, CEO and Founder of DTEC, “We’ve always given back to our community, but for our 25th year, we wanted to make it a bit more substantial. ‘Nourishment’ for us pertains to your mind, body, and soul. What are we nourishing? All three components as a whole person.” At BC Food & Beverage, we were fortunate to be a part of the campaign where DTEC gifted memberships to emerging BC food and beverage companies. But this was just a small portion of what DTEC has done to give back to the community.

Steve Mennie, Random Motion, 1993, silkscreen on paper. Collection of the Kelowna Art Gallery. Gift from the Estate of Jann L. Bailey, 2018.

Our community is who we serve, where we live, our work team members, and likeminded groups who are working in tandem to meet common goals. When we wish to give back to our community, we look at all these sectors to arrive at our give back campaigns.

says June Nicolay

Mind

The ‘Mind’ portion of the Nourishment Campaign includes the spring of 2022 launch of a brand-new customer portal, that offers training videos and additional information that DTEC has gained for the past 25 years of serving the food industry that will assist their clients to move forward with streamlining their business. “This self-help portal will be accessible for our clients so they can go in and basically use all of that information on their own time,” says June, “For example, say you’re onboarding new staff to your organization that need to learn new software and new standard operating procedures, they will have access to these white papers and videos. It’s convenient to have a portal for them to access their own training.” Lifelong learning and shared knowledge are parts of DTEC’s corporate identity.

Body

Next to be nourished is the body. For this portion of the campaign DTEC focused on the food and beverage industry across North America. DTEC realizes that in order to provide nourishing food on every plate, they must support their local food supply chain. They came up with the idea to sponsor memberships for BCFB to help small and emerging BC-based companies that need mentorship and access to peer activities in order to thrive and grow. This year, DTEC gifted 12 BC Food & Beverage memberships to these upand-coming businesses for the inaugural year. “We would like to continue to do this every year,” says June “that is the direction that we want to go. With a national client base, we will also be sponsoring memberships for similar non-profit organizations across Canada.” DTEC also plans on supporting community kitchens and other similar organizations with preferred local rates and software deployment programs. This would be with the goal of assisting growth within localized regions.

Our BC Food & Beverage industry would not have the world class reputation it does without the strength of our tremendous community. “The generous support DTEC offered with their sponsored membership program spoke exactly to what makes our community thrive: when one of us succeeds, we all succeed,” says Alisa Hutton, Director of Membership and Programs at BC Food & Beverage, “DTEC has a deep understanding of the importance of businesses having access to education, resources, and support to help them succeed. This act of kindness has created a wonderful ripple effect and we have more partners who wish to offer support in the same way.” After learning more about DTEC’s Nourishment Campaign, BC Food & Beverage has created the ‘BCFB’s Paying it Forward’ program that we are excited to launch in 2022. “We say at BCFB - we provide you with the right ingredients for growth, DTEC and their contribution to our community is one of those ingredients,” says Alisa, “if you would like to give back and be a part of our Paying it Forward Program, please reach out!”

Landon Mackenzie, Houbarts Hope (Yellow) Crimson Lake (detail), 2001-2003, synthetic polymer and appliqués on linen. Collection of the Kelowna Art Gallery. Gift of Landon Mackenzie, 2020

Soul

The third part of the Nourishment Campaign is ‘soul’ which is focussing on mental health. The need to nourish our souls has become even more apparent during covid, and the social isolation and anxiety that many experience daily navigating this changing landscape. “We also have an endless cycle of people growing up in homes, where there’s not enough love and nourishment in order for them to grow into a whole person,” says June. DTEC has embraced the arts in its many forms of music, visual, written word, dance, and theatre. “Local access to the arts in our community is very important to mental wellness, and for our youth to have positive examples of beauty in their lives. There is scientific research that proves music and art therapy is something that assists people with mental illness challenges,” explains June. The company decided to fund Opera Kelowna, which included a mini-match campaign earlier this year, where DTEC matched any funds donated dollar-for-dollar to Opera Kelowna. They also put together a contest where anyone that donated would be eligible to win an aria sung to them by the opera and a gift basket full of BC-based products. Since art organizations suffered from the closure of live performance venues, DTEC was happy to help fund them during these difficult times.

As another part of the Nourishment Campaign, DTEC is sponsoring the Kelowna Art Gallery exhibition called ‘A Year From Now.’ This exhibition is an introspective look from the Kelowna Art Gallery’s permanent collection that we’re hand-picked by local artists and curator, Wanda Lock. “Five poets were retained to write about the collection,” says June, “The art galleries across the nation have provided safe environments for refection, access to beauty, and collective thought at a time where we have been denied in person activities.”

DTEC is also supporting the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra School Program that offers students an introduction to musical instruments, as well as an initiative for Youth Orchestras across BC. Orchestral training programs with mentors, weekly rehearsals, concerto solo opportunities, a new professionally coached chamber music program and the opportunity to compose work for the orchestra are all part of the OYSO program. “Youth Orchestra organizations in British Columbia were not able to perform any of their year end shows this past year so they joined together and had a piece composed,” says June, “The players were recorded individually, recordings were mixed together, and the final piece was broadcasted on Mental Wellness Day.” This project is called The Apollo Initiative and the orchestras, supporting youth mental wellness, raised over their goal of $10,000.

June and the team at DTEC hope this article will be a call to action to other corporations to realize that if we all work together collectively and give back, we can accomplish some great things in our community.

To learn more about DTEC visit: www.distrib-u-tec.com/