Continental Food and Beverage Inc. / Inca Kola USA joined the Super Bowl fever to celebrate the Game Week Kick Off Reception in Atlanta, an annual fundraising event for its social work programs.
The reception was held on Wednesday, January 30 in the impressive headquarters of the World of Coca-Cola, attended by more than 200 people, including special guests, celebrities and businessmen.
This year, Continental Food and Beverage Inc. / Inca Kola USA honored Josef Martinez as Athlete of the Year. The soccer player from the Atlanta United was named Major League Soccer 2018 MVP.
The event’s master of ceremonies, journalist Mariela Romero, Univision’s regional director of community empowerment in Philadelphia, Raleigh and Atlanta, explained the importance of the Salute to Hispanics in Sports Initiative, which recognizes Hispanics in sports and entertainment for their achievements both on and off the field.
The program aims to enhance the positive image of Hispanics by highlighting the great community work being done by these professionals.
All proceeds at the event will benefit the Georgia Latino Community Fund and the Inca Kola Humanitarian Aid Trip to the Dominican Republic, which will take place in March, where several low-income communities will receive basic medical exams, medicines and vitamin supplements for children and pregnant women.
“Each year Inca Kola offers services to a little over a thousand people in a three-day period and if I’m lucky, I’m going to be enrolling for Univision this humanitarian aid trip,” said Romero.
“For us it is an honor to present this event, it is a legacy of the founder of this company Luis Jardines, who believed in giving back to the community. With my wife Elizabeth and the Inca Kola employees who are like family to us, we follow that light that the founder left us to continue helping the community,” said Randall Berman, COO of Continental Food and Beverage Inc./Inca Kola USA.
Peter Villegas, vice president of Latino Affairs for Coca-Cola, presented the leadership award to Beatriz Pérez, senior vice president and chief communications, public affairs, sustainability and marketing assets officer.
Upon receiving his mention, Pérez told the audience that when she forms her teams “I always make sure that I have the right people, with the right level of diversity, with a good gender balance in the leadership team, 50-50 women and men and I feel very proud of that.”
Rickie Ricardo, the Hispanic voice of the NY Yankees team and the Philadelphia Eagles, presented the media award to the former football player Tony Gonzalez, while the community service award was given to the professional soccer player Miguel Almirón and his girlfriend Alexia Notto.
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And the Athlete of the Year award was presented to Josef Martínez by Sebastián Cano, his agent and personal friend.
“I am very happy and it is the first time I am involved in such an important event, for me it is an honor and my family is very happy too. And let’s hope that here they can help many people, like me when I was a child, I also received a lot of help. And well, I also have to enjoy this day that is very special,” Martinez told Abasto.
At the end of the awards ceremony, the General Manager of Continental Food and Beverage Inc./Inca Kola USA, Julio Coën, reiterated that the main reason for the event is to raise funds for the company’s social campaigns and resources to support the volunteers who will travel in March to the humanitarian mission in the Dominican Republic.
“We are speechless for the support we have received from the number and diversity of people in the city of Atlanta, not only companies like Coca-Cola, distributors of us and other companies, we are very proud,” said Coën to Abasto.
By 2019, the general manager of Continental Food and Beverage Inc./ Inca Kola USA, said that they will continue to grow with other product lines to continue taking over the market.
Based in Clifton, NJ, Continental Food and Beverage Inc./ Inca Kola USA is the exclusive distributor of Coca-Cola for the Inca Kola brand of soft drinks in the United States that are distributed in more than 40 states and internationally in 20 countries. as well as owning other brands of beverages and food products.