A new program launched by ACH Seeds will donate $10,000 to select nonprofit organizations in the communities in which the company's Crystal Brand Sugarbeet Seed is sold.
The program, called “Homegrown Giving,” was launched this year in Michigan and in 2023 will be put in place in North Dakota, Minnesota and Montana.
Growers, industry experts and community members can nominate nonprofit organizations for the $10,000 award, and a panel made of sugarbeet farmers and ACH seed employees will choose the winners.
This year, the program is available in the Great Lakes growing area of Michigan, made up of 14 counties, including Arenac, Mecosta and Saginaw.
Nominations can be made on an online application forum to https://www.homegrowngiving.com.
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The Homegrown Giving program is a way that ACH Seeds can make a positive impact on communities, said Andy Finkral, ACH Seeds national sales leader.
“We live and work in these communities where we sell sugarbeet seed,” Finkral said. ”We want to give back.”
Nominations for the program could vary from a volunteer fire department that is remodeling its firehall to a 4-H club that needs to buy cattle for members to show, Finkral said.
The program nominations will close on June 30, 2022, and the winner will be announced this fall.
Although the program won’t be available in Montana, Minnesota and North Dakota until 2023, ACH Seeds customers in those states did have an opportunity to be part of a trivia contest the company held during the American Sugarbeet Growers Association’s annual meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona, Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2022.
Kyler Jonsson, a 12-year-old boy from Savage, Montana, won the trivia contest, which ACH Seeds held during a reception in which the company shared information about the Homegrown Giving contest and highlighted its potential impact on communities.
Kyler, who annually attends the meeting with his parents and older brother, answered 21 of 24 sugarbeet related questions correctly. He chose the Savage Public School industrial technology program and its teacher Riley Hagler as the recipient of the $1,000 first-place award.
Savage Public School, which is located in a town of less than 300 people, reintroduced industrial technology courses, including woodworking, this school year after a 10-year absence, according to a news release from ACH Seeds.
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“This generous program will allow us to update and diversify our tool options that will closely align with today’s industry. This is an exciting time for our program,” Hagler said in the ACH Seeds news release.
The second-place winner of the ACH Seeds trivia contest requested that the $750 award be given to the American Heart Association and the third winner requested that the award of $500 be given to Riverside Christian School in East Grand Forks, Minnesota.
