O Bee has been honored with many awards, but we are particularly proud of the awards that highlight our work in the community. We received two awards recently, the first was the “Leadership in Business Philanthropy” award given by the South Sound Partners for Philanthropy and the second, the “Campaign of the Year: Spirit of Giving” award from the United Way of Thurston County.
 
Our “Leadership in Business Philanthropy” award recognized O Bee’s ongoing contributions to the community through philanthropic endeavors, like our Scholarship program that recognizes the hard work of local graduates and helps them move forward with their studies whether it’s trade school, community college or university. We also have a Gifts & Donations program that benefits a kaleidoscope of worthy organizations doing amazing work in our community. In addition, O Bee employees are offered 16 hours of paid leave per year to volunteer in the community with all kinds of organizations. They tell us what they want to do, we say, “Go for it!” Our employees lug boxes at local food banks, harvest crops, cook and sew for the homeless, organize auctions, head up committees, bundle recyclables, collect rubbish from roadsides, teach Junior Achievement in elementary schools, deliver holiday gifts, and even help to guide lost hikers from our forests. Whether it’s monetary giving or hard work, philanthropy is alive and well at O Bee.
 
Our second award, “Campaign of the Year: Spirit of Giving” from the United Way recognized all we did to increase employee donations to the United Way for 2016. O Bee employees have the option to donate a portion of their pay check every month to the United Way and O Bee matches it to a certain percentage. This year O Bee employees nearly tripled the amount we donated compared to the previous year, and sent an additional $18,250 per year to do good in our community. One O Bee employee promised to shave his (very full and curly) head of hair if employees met the  Last week, during their 80th anniversary celebration United Way of Thurston County presented O Bee with an award for best workplace campaign of the year. We beat out over 200 other workplaces in Thurston County.
 
Both South Sound Partners for Philanthropy and the United Way do tremendous good in the community and we are proud to be an extension of their important work.