The idea of the "Vigo World Class Tour" started back in 1993 around the lunchroom table of the owners of the family owned business. Three generations were discussing how supportive the community of Tampa has always been towards the company and their products and how they were now in the position to return something to the community. Children were the focus of attention and hence, . . . the birth of the Vigo World Class Tour. Since that time thousands of fifth grade students have come through the doors of Vigo and have learned a multitude of lessons.

First, the children are told of the origins of Vigo, which date back to 1947. The company started in the backyard garage of Mr. & Mrs. Tony Alessi Sr.'s home. The Alessi's worked hand-in-hand building a business. Over time, the business grew. Employees were added and the product list grew. Years later, their two sons also entered the workplace. Today, three generations of Alessi's work at Vigo which now consists of over 280,000 square feet of space, over 150 employees and over 1200 food products. The moral of the story is that with a good idea, a lot of hard work and a little luck, anything is possible. The story of the American Dream turns into a reality.

In addition to being a manufacturer and a distributor, Vigo is also an importer. The children are walked to the back of the warehouse where they are told the process by which products are imported from other countries. They are shown maps, pictures of shipping vessels and palletized merchandise.

As for the manufacturing aspect, the tour includes visits to the spice room (where children are told of raw materials, formulas, etc,), the olive oil bottling line, the olive and pepper packing rooms, the bread crumb processing lines and of course, the rooms where the rice dinners are packaged. Most children (and even most adults) do not realize all the steps involved in producing even a single food item.

Other points of interest include the story of "the gathering of saffron"; the 5,000 gallon stainless steel tanks housing imported olive oil; the silos of rice (holding roughly a half million pounds of rice); the 38 degree refrigerated rooms and the manueverability of fork lift trucks. Children are driven from warehouse to warehouse (which span the streets of a block) via our completely refurbished 1961 bright red Dodge Firetruck.

In the last half hour of the tour, the children walk through the Vigo Distribution Center. There, the children see how finished goods are stored and either loaded or unloaded from freight trucks. They also see a rather large supply of packaging supplies.

Next the children get to see the Vigo test kitchen where all new products are developed and formulated. The tour ends with a free lunch of Vigo Yellow Rice cooked with hot dogs, green beans, bread and butter, juice packs and cookies which is served in a specially designed dining room (which resembles an upscale Spanish restaurant). At the end of the meal, a class photo is taken and added to the bulletin board where other tour photos and essays from previous tours are hung.

Lastly, the children are given a "goodie bag" which includes a Vigo t-shirt, a Vigo pencil, a paper game booklet and a bag of Vigo Rice to take home as a reminder of the Vigo World Class Tour. The teacher's bag has information about the essay contest we offer.

The essay contest has very simple rules. We ask each student taking the tour send a short essay telling us what they learned on the Vigo World Class Tour. As class essays are submitted they are read by a panel of judges and one essay is selected from each class. At the end of the school year, those selected essays are read by a panel of five judges. The school of the winning essay receives a check for $500.00.

This essay contest has allowed us to judge whether or not our tour is doing what we intended it to do, that is, is it giving something back to the community. We are pleased to say the answer thus far has been a resounding "yes". The tour essays are filled with not only factual information but also with creative writing that reflect a realization of the world of opportunities. Almost 1,000 children visited Vigo Importing Company in the past school year.