Beverage Group Vice President Jeremy Nedelka Tel : 763-383-4413 email : jnedelka @ epgacceleration . com

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Sr VP / Audience Development Joanne Juda-Prainito Corporate Operations Director Bernadette Wohlman CEO Marion Minor

IT ’ S BASIC MATH . In a group of people , if nobody looks like you , you may feel like an outsider .

However , increase the number of people who look like you , and now that feeling dissipates .

This logic is behind two newer scholarships that I greatly admire . One is the Urban Grape Wine Studies Award for Students of Color . Run by Beverage Dynamics Top 100 Retailers TJ and Hadley Douglas through their Boston-based wine store , Urban Grape , this scholarship provides funds for students of color to study wine .

Attending industry events , Douglas often found himself the only Black individual in the room . He and his wife ’ s program works to correct that .

Here in Connecticut , Jamal Robinson , director of sales and marketing for New England Brewing Company , has set up a similar scholarship that helps people of color to study brewing . Douglas and Robison use nearly identical language in explaining their motivations and goals . By increasing diversity in these industries , more people of different ethnicities and backgrounds will feel like they belong . This generates self-sustaining momentum , as more and more individuals look around the room and recognize themselves .

Not everybody gets it . When I explained these scholarships to a friend of mine in local whiskey circles , my friend argued that the program discriminated . He questioned why aid only went to Black individuals . What about members of the Latino community ? What about Asians ? Where ’ s their brewing scholarships ?

Naturally , this led to an argument . I explained how Black individuals were underrepresented in the world of craft beer . How the industry as currently constituted did not necessarily make everybody feel fully welcomed . My friend disagreed that bias or extra challenges existed . For proof , he offered how he had grown up in a not-particularly-nice Connecticut city , where everybody of every ethnicity was friends . ( Or so he claimed .)

Truth is , unless you have experienced firsthand what it ’ s like to look different from everybody else , you cannot truly appreciate what underrepresented communities have experienced . Myself included . I will never fully understand .

What you can do is support diversity , equity and inclusion initiatives . Turn to our supplement in this issue to see all the different ways that people from all backgrounds and parts of this industry have helped better the future for everybody and anybody interested in alcohol .

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Beverage Dynamics is published by EPG Brand Acceleration Editorial and executive offices at 10405 6th Ave N , Suite 210 , Minneapolis 55441 Telephone : 763-383-4400 Fax : 763-383-4499

Kyle Swartz Editor , Off-Premise

www . beveragedynamics . com September / October 2022 • Beverage Dynamics 5