Business Communication. Negative News Assignment:

You've been proud of many things your gardening tool company has accomplished as it has grown from just you working in your basement shop to a nationally known company that employs over more than people. However, nothing has made you prouder than the company's Helping Our Hometown Grow program, in which employees volunteer on company time to help residents in your city start their own vegetable gardens, using tools donated by the company. Nearly 50 employees have participateddirectly helping some 500 families supplement their grocery budgets with home-grown produce.

Virtually everyone in the company has contributed, though, because employees who didn't volunteer to help in the gardens pitched in to cover the work responsibilities of the volunteers. Sadly, ten years after you launched the program, you have reached the inescapable conclusion that the company can no longer afford to keep the program going. With consumers around the country still struggling with the aftereffects of a deep recession, sales have been dropping for the past three years - even as lower-cost competitors step up their presence in the market. To save the program. you would have to lay off several employees, but your employees come first.

APPLICATION: Write an email to the entire copany, announcing the cancellation of the program.