posted
on Tuesday, November 8, 2022
in
Dealer News
The members of the Louisiana FFA Association and one very lucky supporter won big during Monday Night Football with the New Orleans Saints on November 7, 2022. A partnership between Sunshine Quality Solutions, the Saints, and the Louisiana FFA Foundation brought in $34,671 to support the Sunshine Sustainability Grant Program. The raffle, which featured a one-of-a-kind Saints-branded John Deere XUV590M Gator donated by Sunshine, concluded with the drawing of the winner before the Saints-Ravens Monday Night Football matchup.
"Sunshine is proud to support the work the Louisiana FFA is doing to cultivate a better future for all by empowering young people to be leaders in agriculture and their communities,” says Rob Richter, CEO of Sunshine. "Many of our employees and customers were proud members of FFA growing up, and Sunshine wants to ensure we’re providing opportunities for our youth to benefit from an education involving agriculture. Seeing our youth wear the iconic FFA blue jackets is rewarding knowing they're investing in their future."
The Sunshine Sustainability Grant program provides Louisiana FFA chapters an opportunity to implement or improve sustainable, revenue-generating activities for their programs. Raquella Manuel, Director of Development for the Louisiana FFA Foundation says, “Partnerships like these enable the FFA Foundation to reward chapters who have made a commitment to teach students about good business practices, skills every student should know before graduating high school. With a nod to the FFA Creed, 'in less need for charity and more of it when needed,’ the Sunshine Sustainability Grant program will help thousands of Louisiana FFA members by covering startup costs of their annual chapter fundraisers. Students are then challenged to invest profits back into the fundraiser for the following year, creating a sustainable and profitable business for local chapters.”
This year’s winner of the Gator was Lester Bernard of Opelousas, Louisiana. In addition, FFA chapters were given the opportunity to compete for $1,000 by promoting the most raffle ticket sales. This year’s chapter winner was St. Amant FFA.