Friends, enemies, woodland creatures. As I sip my coffee on this early January morning I feel so encouraged by what happened in 2016. I want to share with you a little recap of the year, and a few numbers. But I want to emphasize that numbers are not what matter. What does matter, is the thing that the numbers represent: a lot of individual people getting together and pushing the button that says "I care." So yes, I'm about to share a bunch of highlights, pictures, and dollar signs. But before I do, I want to say this: thanks for joining the team.
In late April of 2016, we hopped on stage at Bethel College to share the vision. And from that point on, it was all systems. go.
Orders filled the queue, so it was time to print and package. My stunt crew came over and helped us package the first shipment of shirts. Plus, We got to throw on our comfy shirts for the first time.
It was a pretty great summer. I didn't work that much during August, but that's because...well...
Once August faded into fall, we started getting ready for Christmas. For Cyber Monday, we launched our first line of shirts! Complete with designs available on sweaters.
At Tiny Panda Threads we sold over 150 shirts and sweaters in 2016. You bought those shirts via pre-orders, through our online store, at 2 trade shows, or by shooting me a text. Every bit of that was a fun surprise. I even had one person buy a t-shirt via snapchat.
By the end of the year, we had raised $1000 for charity.
It blows me away to type those little words. That's $1000 that OneSky can now use to empower caregivers in China. You can read more about their story, visit their website.
If I were to describe the year in a word, it would be this: encouraging. So from me, from GiGi, from Anna and Tyler and Abby and Alan and Bo and the ever-growing host of people that help out with this little thing:
Thank you.