BEAUMONT, Texas — Businesses across our region are honoring Black History Month in a unique way. They are shining the spotlight on black entrepreneurs and their products by highlighting them in stores.
From retail to grocery stores, some businesses say they work year-round to highlight diversity. This year, Target and H-E-B are finding new ways to celebrate Black History Month.
Starting small and growing their diversity outreach, each year Target has come up with different ways to honor Black History Month and this year, the celebration focuses on a theme of Black wellbeing.
“Knowing all that's going on in the world, we are really honing in on that relevancy, emotional, physical, mental wellbeing and really bringing guests things that they need in their lives to help support that,” said Tawnya Artisst, Target Design Director.
Target is selling products made by Black entrepreneurs, and they held a design competition called the HBCU design challenge.
“We actually worked with HBCU students and they actively designed into a couple of options of projects they could compete on, and one of them tied back into that wellbeing messaging and the other one tied into kind of the historical aspect of Black History Month,” Artisst said.
Three winners were chosen for their designs to be featured in Target stores for the month.
H-E-B is highlighting their partners who are Black business owners and the products they sell. H-E-B has donated a million dollars to fight racial inequity and injustice in the black community and has launched a new program called "Be the change."
“It's really to support those non-profits that bring about economic empowerment to alleviate criminal injustices or social economic injustices in Texas and abroad,” said H-E-B Diversity Director James Harris.
“Be the change” is also a way for H-E-B to ensure they are being diverse in what they sell, their partnerships and through their hiring process. Harris said it's something the company has prioritized for years.
“We're actually making sure we are doing our due diligence to ensure that that happens, so we live inside the legacy that Mrs. Florence Butts set for us back in 1905, so we're living that out even today in 2021,” Harris said.
Both businesses say they are planning to honor additional heritage and history months. They want to focus on their mission to selling diverse products in store all year round.
