JCB executives joined administrators, teachers and board members of the Lady Bamford Center for Early Childhood Development Monday to celebrate JCB’s donation of $100,500 — proceeds from the company’s recent Mud Run and Dig the Ride events.
But it was the children who stole the show.
With big grins, a few giggles and a chorus of “Thank you,” the preschoolers showed off their JCB banner to Thom Peebles and Steve Vernon, the construction equipment manufacturer’s vice presidents for marketing and finance, respectively.
“It’s really an honor to be able to contribute to the community this way,” Peebles said. “We are big believers in early childhood education. You have to learn to read before you can read to learn for the rest of your life, and that’s what the folks at the Lady Bamford Center are doing — they are putting these children on the right track, setting them up to be lifetime learners who are successful in school and the workplace.
“It’s a unique program, and we’re proud to continue to sponsor these efforts.”
More than 2,000 runners, riders and spectators got “down and dirty” last month at JCB’s third annual Mud Run and first-ever Dig the Ride cycling event on the campus of the company’s North American Headquarters in Savannah.
The run consisted of teams of two making their way through a sloppy, messy five-mile course spread across JCB’s sprawling 1,000-acre campus. Runners splashed through a lake and traveled down numerous trails featuring obstacles that tested both their endurance and their ability to get dirty.
View Spotted photos of the Mud Runandrunners at the finish line.
Added to the mud run for the first time was Dig the Ride, an all-terrain cycling event that offered riders a five-mile course complete with limbs, drops, bridges, berms, speed-oriented passing stretches and light obstacles.
View Spotted photos of JCB's Dig the Ride.
“The Mud Run itself is an amazing event,” said David Paddison, a member of the Lady Bamford Center board and chairman of the Mud Run/Dig the Ride. “You have nearly 4,000 people on the JCB campus as volunteers, participants and spectators and everyone is having a great time.
“But the most exciting aspect of the event is the impact it has on the Lady Bamford Center. To be able to have fun and present a check for $100,500 to carry on the mission of the center makes the event a huge asset to the community.”
Tammy A.K. Mixon agreed.
“To have the needed resources to continue to provide quality care for our preschoolers in the west Savannah area is such a blessing,” said Mixon, executive director of Wesley Community Center, which oversees the Lady Bamford Center.
The center provides education and social skills development to children from 6 weeks to 5 years of age, offering priority admission to children from homeless and low-income families, as well as children with physical, mental or emotional challenges. Its interactive curriculum prepares young children for kindergarten and elementary school and helps them compete with other children academically, Mixon said.
The center, which serves 83 children, has a waiting list of more than 100. It was founded in 2007, the brainchild and namesake of Lady Carole Bamford, wife of JCB owner and chairman Sir Anthony Bamford.
The first of its kind in North America, the center is part of Lady Bamford’s goal of building an early childhood learning center near each of the 22 manufacturing plants that JCB operates on four continents, including two already in operation in India.