Clinton Orr has always been passionate about helping others. Through his career as Senior Wealth Advisor and Senior Portfolio Manager with Canaccord Genuity Group, he has been able to combine his love for numbers with this passion by assisting hundreds of clients with securing their financial future.
Alongside his wife Jodi Ruta, Orr started the Pet Life Animal Fund in 2020, extending his helping hand to animals in need. The couple created the Fund after the passing of their beloved rescue dog, Bubba, and have been providing animal rescue centers with resources needed to care for more animals ever since. Today, they are the proud owners of four pets: Ashes the cat, and three rescues dogs, Thor, Loki, and Maxx.
This month, he and Ruta are setting up a scholarship through the Brokenhead River Community Foundation that will reward students for their involvement in the local community. The scholarship will be called the “Clinton Orr & Jodi Ruta Community Builder Scholarship Fund”. The couple will award two $4,000 scholarships to graduating students in the Ecole Edward Schreyer School catchment area. The successful applicant must demonstrate active volunteer involvement in Ecole Edward Schreyer School-sanctioned activities within the community of Beausejour. In cases where multiple applicants have the same volunteer score, the students with the highest academic achievements will be awarded the scholarship.
Through this new scholarship, Orr hopes to not only help out the students themselves, but also to encourage students to become more active within their communities, thereby helping others as well.
Orr’s experiences with the Pet Life Animal Fund were a major reason why he chose to establish this new scholarship. He and his wife both had multiple pets growing up, and it was important to them as they established their family that they adopt a rescue dog from a no-kill shelter. They considered themselves extremely lucky to find Bubba, and through their experiences with adopting him and treating his early trauma, they came to understand how few resources these shelters had to work with. Their budgets were small, the hours for volunteers and staff were long, and they realized that many animals would not receive the life-saviing care they needed. They began to donate resources regularly until, upon the passing of their beloved Bubba, they decided to honour his life by establishing the Pet Life Animal Fund.
Through their efforts, so many animals have been able to receive the medical care they needed before being considered for adoption. They’ve given these animals a shot at finding a forever home, and the satisfaction they’ve felt has been enormous. They were driven to encourage others, especially young people, to seek out the same satisfaction through service.
One of Orr’s favourite quotes is by the motivational writer James Clear, author of Atomic Habits: “Most people need consistency more than intensity. Intensity makes a good story. Consistency makes progress.”
By establishing this scholarship, Orr and his wife hope to create a consistent source of service for the community of Beausejour.