Community Involvement

SALVATION ARMY KETTLE FUND


         

For more than 100 years, Canadians have thrown money into Salvation Army’s Christmas kettles to help the less fortunate during the holiday season. The Salvation Army’s Christmas Kettle Campaign is one of Canada’s largest and most recognizable annual charitable events. In addition to the critical fundraising impact of the Campaign, the Christmas kettles boost the Army’s visibility and awareness. In fact, there are more than 2,000 kettle locations across Canada that support a wide range of Salvation Army programs.

Onyx has made it an annual tradition to donate to this worthwhile organization.  This year more than most they are helping the most vulnerable people in our community.  We are happy to support an organization that gives hope and support to vulnerable people in 400 communities across Canada and in 131 countries around the world.


We Continue to Grow Our Partnership with FIRST and FIRST LEGO

                                            

We believe investing in youth has many rewards. Continuing the company's legacy of community giving, we are very pleased to support the 2020 FIRST Robotics Canada (FIRST) and FIRST Robotics Competitions (FRC) that provide high school students with opportunities to learn new skills that prepare them for the future.

FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) inspire students, teachers and mentors to work together to build a robot to face off against other robots. FIRST not only promotes student development in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) disciplines. They also learn important values like safety, teamwork and collaboration, and something FIRST call "gracious professionalism". It's a term that promotes win/win relationships in a way that demonstrates integrity, respect and valuing others, individuals and teams. As FIRST says, "it's not about the Robot."

FIRST LEGO League is the most accessible, guided, global robotics competition, helping students and teachers to build a better future together. The program is built around theme-based Challenges to engage children ages 9 to 16* in research, problem solving, coding, and engineering. The foundation of the program is the FIRST Core Values, which emphasize teamwork, discovery, and innovation. Students emerge more confident, excited, and equipped with the skills they need in a changing workforce.

Our partnership with FIRST is a fulfilling one for the company and employees who donate time mentoring students and judging the competitions. We take pride in knowing we help encourage young people to pursue further studies in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Many of these participants have aspirations for careers based on these disciplines.

Our 2020 sponsored teams include:

·         Viral Vista - #4936 – Tecumseh Vista Secondary School in Tecumseh, ON

·         Villanova WiredCats - #5885 - Villanova Secondary School in LaSalle, ON

·         Glenwood – Glenwood Public School Robotics club in Windsor, ON

Lose the Training Wheels - Up about Downs  - Windsor, ON.

Together with a number of charitable donations to major charities, Onyx Engineering is proud to support initiatives which help special interests.  One of these interests is the 'Lose the Training Wheels' program.

The adapted bicycling program had its genesis in the more than 20 years of research of Dr. Richard E. Klein and his students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  Richard retired from his academic career at the University of Illinois in 1998 and the first bike camp was held in 1999 in LaCrosse, WI.  In January 2007, a small group of parents, therapy professionals, and business leaders formed Lose The Training Wheels, Inc. as a not-for-profit organization which was recognized as a tax exempt public charity in June of 2008.  The Lose The Training Wheels bike program has grown from one camp and one fleet of bikes in 1999, to 50 camps across the U.S. and in Canada and five fleets of bikes in 2008.  The impact of learning to ride a bicycle and our high level of success in helping individuals with disabilities accomplish this feat continues to drive demand for our camps and fuel our growth.  We anticipate that over the next 5 years we will grow to more than 100 camps in at least 5 countries.

These camps were hosted by The Windsor-Essex Down Syndrome Parent Association-Up About Down and held at the Novelletto - Rosati Sports and Recreation Complex. Onyx Engineering was pleased to provide a helmet free of charge to each participant.