Dwight Hillocks honoured at legacy event

The founder of Tus-T Water and the Start Bright School Breakfast Initiative was honoured at a legacy event one year after his death.

“It has been a very difficult 14 months without Dwight [Hillocks] as you would imagine,” his wife, and Managing Director of Tus-T Water Incand Start Bright Initiative Gail Hillocks said in her opening remarks.

“I certainly have had to dig very deep personally and also truly focus on his vision as well as learning to trust myself with fulfilling what he started. He was very clear way before his known illness that he always expected me to continue what he started should something ever happen to him.”

The legacy event, which was held at the Bungalow Restaurant in Villa, saw numerous supporters, including relatives, friends and business partners in attendance to honour Hillocks, commemorate the company’s beginnings, learn about the present status of the company and to get a glimpse of its road ahead.

“As a refresher, Tus-T Water Inc was established in November 2016 to provide healthier beverages with less sugar. There were initially three plain water items, and shortly after three flavoured waters were added. Proceeds from the sale of each bottle sold were automatically allocated to the Start Bright Initiative to provide a free nutritious school breakfast to those children that went to school hungry,” Gail said.

She said initially, 75 children benefited from the program. However, over the past eight years, sales grew as did the number of children on the Start Bright program, and of this new school year, 1000 children from primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions are now on the program.

“The reality is that we must grow our sales to feed more children. Dwight’s dream was enormous. I am not sure that in my lifetime I will attain what his vision expected, however we will do our best to get there.”

She further announced that the brand’s face will be transforming and that the new Tus-T packaging is inspired by Dwight’s vision. She also said that one of the company’s creatives, Nadia Huggins took what her husband had started and completed the next generation of the company’s packaging.

“We are also extremely proud to launch three new flavours (Lychee, Dragon Fruit and Golden Apple) to broaden our shelf presence and build our sales to feed more of our children. This is for our Nation’s Children. The more we sell, the more we feed.”

Gail said that Tus-T is synonymous with Dwight, as it truly was the single most important part of his career and legacy, and so she truly feel armed to protect his legacy.

Hillocks thanked the “Start Bright Kids,” day one customers: Greaves Supermarkets, Massy, Bonadie, Randy’s, The Coreas Distribution Limited family, Rodney Garraway, Eastern Caribbean Bottlers Inc, Tust-T support team, Maxim Browne, Brian Glasgow, Nadia Huggins, Liley Cato, Andrew and Joleen Williams, and Kris and Alex Abbott, as well as the teachers, principals and volunteers who has helped in honouring the life and work of Dwight Hillocks.