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Just like a mission, every company also has something called a vision statement. A vision statement is a way for a company to say in a simple way what a company stands for, believes in, and hopes to be. For example, Disney’s vision statement is: “To make people happy.” Disney does this by making cartoons, movies, and parks that bring joy to people. Sweet’s vision statement is this:

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To demolish all barriers, celebrate individuality, and spark creativity that ignites change.

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Let’s talk about exactly what this vision statement means by breaking it apart. First, let’s start with “to demolish all barriers.” A barrier is something that gets in the way or stops something from happening. We believe that having a disability is not the barrier that stops people with disabilities from living their lives how they want. Instead, we believe that the world around us is the barrier and needs to change.

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Here is a quick example of what this means. Let’s say that a person uses a wheelchair to get around. The person reads in the newspaper that a new sporting goods store was just built. That person needs a new basketball and goes to visit later that day. When the person gets there, they come to a barrier: there are stairs to the door of the store and no ramp for their wheelchair. They can’t get in. The barrier is not the person’s disability that prevents them from walking. That person has no control over needing to use a wheelchair. The real barrier is the storeowner who chose not to put in a ramp.

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This does not mean that the storeowner was a mean or rude person. Maybe the storeowner had never been around a wheelchair user and didn’t even think about installing a ramp. Or maybe the storeowner didn’t know that wheelchair users played sports! If the storeowner had had a different attitude about wheelchair users, then there probably would have been a ramp installed outside the store.

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How does Sweet believe that we can “demolish” or destroy barriers? That can be a hard question to answer because every person faces different barriers. There is one thing that Sweet knows for sure that can demolish things that are in the way for people with disabilities. That is to find every way possible for people with disabilities to be included in the community. This can mean helping someone understand their emotions, finding a place where they want to live with the assistance they need, or even just finding a ride for them to go to the grocery store or out to eat. The more that the community understands people with disabilities, the more barriers will disappear.

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The next part of Sweet’s vision statement is pretty easy to understand. It is “to celebrate individuality.” This means that we believe that disabilities and the things that make us unique are something to be proud of. Having a disability is not something to hide or be ashamed of. We believe that we should all celebrate our differences and not just try to be like everyone else!

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The last part of our vision statement is to “spark creativity that ignites change.” We want everyone at Sweet to be as creative as possible and we encourage everyone’s creative interests. This doesn’t mean only the people that we serve, but our employees as well. When people think of creativity, they think of things like painting, music, or writing stories, but there is more to being creative than making art. People can be creative in everything that they do in their lives and even use creativity to solve problems. We want people to use their creativity to ignite or start change not only in the world around them, but also in themselves.

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