Blog — bike commuting

VentaPak will plant one tree for every VentaPak through our partnership with Onetreeplanted.org,  a leading non-profit that plants millions of tree each year

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Enjoying and Caring for our Forests and Planet

You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.

In any other year, this old cliché would seem just that. An easy way to explain all the things we’ve lost because of the pandemic. Yet, when I look back on what loss means for me personally in 2020, the word takes on a much more profound meaning. 

I’ve spent much of my life outdoors. Whether hiking, playing camping, or biking around and to work in New York City; being outside and in nature is where I have felt the happiest and key to well being.

Loving the outdoors, biking as a way to get around and explore on your own terms, and creating new products and companies led me to launch the VentaPak to transform the backpack wearing experience.

This has been a hard year for all of us, and being outdoors and in forests has been a tonic.   COVID has constrained and challenged us in ways we could never have imagined.    While our forests have been a refuge for us, they have also been suffering greatly.   California burned for most of the spring, again, destroying millions of acres of forest land.  A young relative of mine, who was studying at McGill University, tragically died in October.    She was a wonderful and promising young woman.  She loved trees and went to Costa Rica with OneTreePlanted; she wanted to do her part to help heal and restore forests that are suffering. She was studying environmental science and on a path to do great things to care for our environment and make the planet green.

So, as I reflected on Giving Tuesday, supporting OneTreePlanted, along with Bikes for Kids Foundation, was the obvious thing to do.    Even more as VentaPak is all about enjoying the outdoors more, whether biking, hiking, fishing, or other activities.

VentaPak is committed to giving 10% of our profits to non profits doing great things, such as our first partner Bikes for Kids Foundation, and now OneTreePlanted. 

For every VentaPak purchased, we will plant one tree through a donation to One Tree Planted (www.onetreeplanted.org). My hope is that it’s an idea that can grow with everyone who loves the outdoors – and something I commit to continuing in 2021 and beyond.

People we’ve lost can’t come back - they can only be remembered, cherished, and honored. . But nature can. With all of our help.

-Mark Dingle