How an AEGIS Employee is giving back to Veterans
As many of you know, our Operations Associate, Chris Otte, and her husband own Street Pedalers LLC, pedi-cab advertising business, in Fond Du Lac. They held their 3rd annual Cheese and Quackers Rubber Duck Race to benefit SALUTE THE TROOPS INC. (STT INC.). They sell tickets for the event that reference a rubber duck in the race. On September 7th, the rubber ducks were placed into the river in downtown Fond Du Lac to race each other to the finish line. The first five ducks to cross the finish line in order are the 1st place through 5th place winners. Each duck has a number on it which corresponds to a numbered raffle ticket. Holders of those raffle tickets are notified if not present that they have won.
It was another successful event from a planning, execution and gift giving perspective. As the sponsor of the event, STREET PEDALERS LLC (SP, LLC) increased the number of tickets purchased by 20% and managed to sell out a week prior to the race. Additionally, they were raising extra funds beyond the sale of raffle tickets to one day purchase their own rubber ducks for future races. This purchase will eliminate the need to rent rubber ducks from their current source thereby passing more of the generated proceeds to, Salute the Troops INC.
To date, over $1,300 in donations is earmarked for this purpose bringing their total gift this year to Salute the Troops INC. to $4,650.00, a 32% increase from last year alone.
The cumulative amount raised in the three years of doing this event is $9,850 in total for SALUTE THE TROOPS. We are very proud of their accomplishments but they realize they didn’t do it alone. Many advertising clients helped with ticket sales and friends donated time, talent and equipment to pull this off. Seed money provided by Thrivent Financial Services helped to get the ball rolling each year.
We thank God that he blessed their efforts to help SALUTE THE TROOPS in their mission to assist our local veterans. Kevin Otte, Chris’s husband, being a Marine Corps veteran himself, he sees all too often the plight of veterans needing help and not having a source of assistance. These men and women put on a uniform to serve our country, at a time in their lives when it wasn’t convenient, to go do what had to be done to secure the freedoms and liberties we all enjoy today. Now, when they need help, Salute the Troops INC. stands ready to provide whatever help they can to those heroes.
This annual race allows Kevin & Chris Otte’s, small Pedi cab advertising company in Fond du Lac to do so much more than we could ever hope to do alone to help these men and women in a tri-county area. They feel blessed to help and they give God the glory for the results. We are thankful for people like Chris and her husband.
