A big congratulations to Che Florant and Cameron Irvine, two Coast Mountain Bus Company (CMBC) employees who were honoured by the Canadian Urban Transit Association (CUTA) last week!

At CUTA’s fall conference in Windsor, Ontario, bus operator Che Florant received an Employee Excellence Award for helping a single mother who left her wallet on another bus. The wallet had $200 in it, which she was planning to spend on diapers and groceries for her children.

Che helped track down the other bus, but when the wallet couldn’t be found, Che gave the woman $40 out of his own pocket. He refused any repayment, and didn’t tell the company about his actions—in fact, the only reason anybody found out was when the woman’s ex-boyfriend wrote a letter to the company expressing his thanks. The letter included this comment:

I was completely stunned and absolutely amazed! I have lived in Vancouver for 15 years now and I have never encountered such a completely selfless act of kindness before.

As well, Customer Information Supervisor Cameron Irvine won a Volunteer/Advocate Award, for his efforts to help his co-workers and the company give back to the communities they serve—actions that go far beyond his regular responsibilities.

Cam has worked in transit for more than 23 years, and has always been involved with organizing annual company food and clothing drives, and coordinating monthly employee blood-donor drives. And since 1999, Cam has facilitated the United Way “Days of Caring,” a semi-annual community outreach program, and is currently the Chair of CMBC’s United Way Employee Campaign.

This is in fact the second year in a row that CMBC employees have been recognized by CUTA. Last year, transit operator Jas Grewal was honoured with an award for intervening in an attack.

Jas was driving a Vancouver city bus when he spotted a group of four or five boys beating up another. He chased the attackers away with a wheel block, then attended to the boy who was being beaten. The attackers came back, but police arrived as Jas grabbed the wheel block again. It also turned out the victim had a shunt inserted in his brain, and the beating could have been fatal if Jas had not stopped to help.

Again, a big congratulations and thanks for doing such an amazing job, all of you!