Clean Ace holds Christmas carol, floats foundation

CLEAN Ace, dry-cleaning company has instituted a foundation primarily to give back to the Nigerian society where it has been doing business in the last 11 years.

Making the announcement at the Christmas Carol, organised by the company at its Lekki, Lagos office on the eve of Christmas, its chief executive officer,  Ibukun Adebayo, said God told him to start the foundation.

“God said that as many people as want to do dry-cleaning, you must seek them out. We have registered the Clean Ace Foundation and I have the board members here. This is the first public mention of this foundation,” he said.

“The object of the foundation,” he explained, “is to have a dry-cleaning academy, the first in Nigeria that will train people who want to go into dry-cleaning, provide them with opportunities, help (them) with money.”

Adebayo, who has been involved with the laundry and dry-cleaning business for 25 years beginning at Garment Care, where he rose to the position of operation manager, said the goal of Clean Ace in the New Year is to be the first drycleaner with an ISO certificate.

“One of the targets for 2017 is getting an ISO certificate, as the first drycleaner not just in Nigeria, not just in Africa, but in the world,” he said.

He explained that the foundation would to propagate the spirit of self-reliance, share skills in entrepreneurship.

“Everybody can start a business with nothing as long as the head is in the right place. You don’t need capital from your uncle, you don’t need land or a house, you don’t need anything. It is just the vision, dream and passion, as well as to be alive and sharp. So, we will be sharing that.

“A lot of people have not discovered themselves and if you don’t discover yourself in God, then you are nowhere. If there are places that business plans don’t work, it is a country like Nigeria, because business plans go one way and the realities of Nigeria are on the other way,” he stated.

The night itself turned out to be a fun-filled one, with many of the company’s clientele and staff singing along to the traditional Christmas songs accompanied by a small ensemble that provided melody.

Essentially, whenever a song was projected on the screen, the MC would take the microphone to the table that was next in line, which would have already chosen one person to represent it in the song. In this way, almost everyone got to partake in the singing before the night was over. The verses were allotted but, the refrain was sung by all the others, whose table was not up. As was expected, there were all kinds of voices adding to the fun of the night.

Also, some of the children did a few special numbers, as well as a special performance from the violinist, Joshua Francis that really lifted the spirit and no doubt ushered in the Christmas spirit for those still on the fence after carols. Among the songs were ‘O Come, O Come Emmanuel’, ‘Jingle Bells’, ‘Joy to the World’, ‘O Come All You Faithful’, and a host of others.

Those, who attended the event, also got a glimpse of the strides the company had made beginning from baby steps that pictured the CEO doing laundry and ironing clothes right up to the opening of the Lekki office, one of its biggest. What was evident in the video projected on the same screen at the sing-along Christmas Carol was the passion and determination of the CEO and his staff, many of who have stayed with the company from inception.