The Cause
How we started: Pandas Fight Against Cancer started with our founder PJ Reed, who is a big cuddly teddy bear and was given the Panda nickname. You can usually find him with a backwards cap on as you’ll see in our logo. He started giving back in 2015 by holding fundraisers for his birthday and donating the money to a local cancer patient. Pandas Fight Against Cancer became a 501© 3 nonprofit organization in January of 2020.
What we do: The Panda represents helping a family in need affected by cancer, it signifies strength, hope, and unity. It is a positively immense feeling to attend one of our events and look around to see everyone wearing a panda logo. Selling of our merchandise is the main way we generate money as a nonprofit organization to donate to the families in need. If you see anyone in the community wearing our panda logo, know they have helped a family battling cancer. We love to work closely within our community for other causes such as annual toy drive, canned food drive for the holidays, and back to school. The most important part of what we do is provide significant donations to families. This past year we were able to help 8 families. These are their names: Michael, Chloe, Piper, Bree, Ryder, Sky, Sawyer, and Nolan.
Covid efforts: Our first year as a nonprofit was during the Covid-19 global pandemic, however our work never stops. For 6 consecutive weeks we provided lunch’s to frontline employees for the Hematology and Oncology Department at Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters (CHKD), as well as donated children’s mask. We’ve also provided masks to the VOA(Virginia Oncology Associates) both Norfolk and Virginia Beach locations for cancer patients as well as the nurses and employees.
Our hopes: Our future goals at Pandas Fight Against Cancer is to expand outside of Hampton Roads and go nationally. We’d also love to create a Cancer survivor park/and or statue within our community. A future program we plan to implement would be a College tuition program/scholarship for adolescents who are pediatric cancer survivors , and of course continuing to have our fundraisers. No one fights alone!
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