Panda + Community Fall 2018

The past couple of months have seen a lot of activity in the community for the Smart Panda. We have golfed, planted trees, ran, biked, and dealt to name a few things.

At the end of July, Wade celebrated his 44th birthday by getting on his bicycle with his fellow MS Bike Ride Team – Butt Ugly, and spent two days cycling from Grand Bend to London and back. This 160km (100 miles) of fun has become a signature event for Smart Panda, and in the past 4 years has raised over $10,000. The Butt Ugly Team while small still makes a huge impact with over $70,000 this year and over $72,000 last year. It is so rewarding to ride with such an inspirational group, and looking forward to 2019!

In July, Wade turned the presidency of Railway City Rotary over to fellow business Partner Ian, and Ian is doing a fantastic job running the Rotary Club. So far we have been involved in several great projects, and have many to look forward to throughout the Rotary year. Last month we planted a couple hundred trees at Hawk Cliff with the Talbot Land Trust folks. We were honoured to help out our Local Legion by handing out Poppies – Lest We Forget. We helped out our local hospital by running the Reach-The-Beach water station, and at their Gala event by dealing Charity Blackjack. This week we are off to help out Eat-2-Learn with packing for one of their biggest fundraisers, and we will soon be helping serve up some great food at Inn-Out-of-The-Cold.

The Smart Panda continues its sponsorship with Big Brothers Big Sisters of St Thomas Elgin, and were out at the golf-4-kids event, and have continued doing the In-School-Mentoring Program. We feel strongly that everybody is better with a mentor, whether it be personally or professionally, which is how we have built Smart Panda, we make companies better with our trusted advise and experience (mentoring!).