2023 Winner: Cass City Public Schools!

With the donation, Cass City Public Schools plans to sustain a school-based Class A CDL training program to help address the high demand for CDL drivers in the agriculture industry. Through the training program, students receive both a math credit and a Class A CDL certification. The school rents a truck and trailer each month while covering other costs such as fuel and insurance. Students pay for the online portion of the course and the fee for an online test. The donation will help fund the school’s CDL program and create a scholarship to pay the fees for students who complete the course. There are many success stories of Cass City Public Schools students who have completed the course that are now utilizing their CDL license in their current careers with a few of those students returning to agriculture. Twelve students are currently enrolled in the CDL course for this school year.

2022 Winner: Ubly FFA

To kick off our Homegrown Giving program in 2022, we focused our giving in the Great Lakes region of Michigan. The recipient of our first year’s donation was the Ubly FFA Chapter of Ubly, Michigan. Ubly FFA is in Michigan’s sugarbeet-producing region and serves 155 students from Huron, Sanilac and Tuscola counties. Nearly half
of its members come from families whose livelihood is attributed to
the sugarbeet industry.