The sweet scent of partnership

Success is sweeter when it is shared. After all, success unshared is failure.

Isabel “Beng” Tesoro, president of the 65-year-old Tesoro Group of Companies, knows this too well as her company embarks on a tie up with Carewell (Cancer Resource and Wellness Community), a non-profit foundation that provides support, education and hope to persons with cancer and their loved ones.

“We have decided to dedicate a portion of our sales for a whole year (from Dec. 5, 2009 to Dec. 5, 2010) to Carewell so that it may continue to do its good works for all its community members, the patients afflicted with cancer and their families,” says Beng.

Helping others is not an alien thing for Tesoro’s, a company that started as a hat store on Calle Real in Intramuros in 1945. It was founded by Beng’s late parents, lawyer Nestor and Salud Tesoro. The Tesoro children are continuing the legacy left to them by their parents — a legacy that revolves around purveying only the best in Filipino-made gifts, apparel and handicraft. Today, Tesoro’s has two flagship stores, in Mabini and Makati, and several smaller branches in airports and shopping areas around the country.

Like other companies that adhere to the very tenet of corporate social responsibility, Tesoro’s believes that success in business is not always about money. It must also have a heart. 

Carewell founder Bobbit Suntay is very happy with the support his foundation is getting from Tesoro’s.

“Aside from the financial support, Tesoro’s will also give us the publicity support via co-branding wherein their stores will carry and sell especially-designed shopping bags with the special Carewell logo,” says Bobbit. Carewell was incorporated in 2005. It was envisioned by Bobbit and his late wife, Jackie Fernandez-Suntay, who died of ovarian cancer in 2005.

Bobbit recalls that Jackie was still alive when the couple thought of putting up the foundation after they were inspired by their experiences in the US at The Wellness Community, the largest international, community-based psychosocial support organization for persons living with cancer. Jackie, that time, was being treated in Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

“After Jackie’s death, Carewell became my best therapy,” he says. “To this day, it keeps me well and upbeat about life.”

Beng is happy to learn about “the foundation’s fantastic work of helping patients with cancer and their families.”

She says: “Carewell provides anyone with cancer and their family with emotional/psychological support, counsel, therapy as well as guidance and information on the new direction and new developments in cancer care and medication.”

“I also learned that, since they are a not-for-profit organization, they rely purely on donations and volunteers in various fields — doctors, therapists, administrative staff — to keep their work going,” she adds, as if to define the rationale behind Tesoro’s support of Carewell and its mission.

The tie-up between Tesoro’s and Carewell, say Beng and Bobbit, started with a scent. Yes, a scent.

“Last June, I met with Dely Panlilio Fernandez, one of the main moving forces behind Carewell, as Tesoro’s was interested in carrying the foundation’s Green Tea Scent,” says Beng of how the partnership between her company and Carewell came about. 

The Green Tea Scent is Carewell’s special line of perfume, a product designed by Oola Mapua, a friend of Jackie.

For some reason, Bobbit says, cancer patients undergoing chemo therapy are sensitive to smell. The only scent that they like is the smell of green tea.

Now, the sweet scent of partnership between Tesoro’s and Carewell is wafting in the air.

(For your new beginnings, please e-mail me at bumbaki@yahoo.com or my.new.beginnings@gmail.com.

Have a blessed Sunday.)