First Pioneer Farm Credit shares abundance with Northeast communities

First Pioneer and its customers unite to support local charities

For many years, it has been a tradition at First Pioneer Farm Credit to host special association-wide events for employees and their families.

This year First Pioneer, the Northeast’s largest agricultural lender, took a different approach. Instead of honoring the Farm Credit “family” with a company get together, First Pioneer shared “the abundance of agriculture” with local communities throughout its six-state service area.

For example, last summer, employees at Farm Credit’s Flemington (N.J.) branch office treated 64 guests from their local Big Brothers Big Sisters association to a minor league baseball game in Trenton.

Later in the summer, the Flemington office teamed up with First Pioneer’s Bridgeton and Middletown branches to organize a highly successful golf outing, which raised $25,000 for the New Jersey Agricultural Society’s Farmers Against Hunger and Agriculture in the Classroom programs.

That phase of the First Pioneer effort, nicknamed “SOME ‘r FUN,” featured fundraising or similar activities by all 15 of First Pioneer’s branch offices in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island and New York.

Then, this fall, when it was time for each branch to host its annual customer meeting, First Pioneer announced that it would donate $20 to locally designated charities for each customer who attended his or her branch office meeting. At past annual meetings, customers in attendance received gift items for their attendance, such as coffee mugs or baseball caps.

(Note: Because Farm Credit is a member-owned cooperative, the organization’s “customers” are actually members of the organization who elect their boards of directors and share in year-end patronage dividends.)

This year, when First Pioneer customers learned that their meeting participation would assist charity, they responded enthusiastically. In fact, First Pioneer’s president and CEO, Bill Lipinski, reported that customer attendance at the 15 meetings generated more than $23,000 in donations to local food banks throughout the Northeast.

Explaining First Pioneer’s community program, Lipinski said, “I challenged the First Pioneer staff this year to go above and beyond what they had done in the past in service to their local communities, and they responded magnificently. The programs have been very well received by our staff as well as by our customers. Both employees and farmers are eager to reach out to help those in their communities.”

Lipinski added, “I am particularly pleased that our organization can participate in this way not just once each year, but many times. Our 15 annual branch office meetings occur near the Thanksgiving season, at a time when we all celebrate the harvest of the safest, most secure and abundant food and fiber supply in the world. By attending their local meetings, Northeast agricultural producers shared their abundance with others in need. It’s a great way to connect those who grow America’s plentiful food supply with those who really need a little help.”

“SOME ‘r FUN” Overview

Last spring, when Lipinski decided to launch the SOME ’r FUN program he provided each of First Pioneer’s 15 local branch offices with a budget and asked them to conduct (or participate in) some type of “SOME ‘r FUN’ event that:

• involved First Pioneer staff and their families
• provided a service either to the local agricultural community or the local community at large

Offices teamed up across their geographic service areas to cosponsor events and had the option of contributing their own advertising budgets to help promote the events. Beyond these guidelines, branch offices were generally free to do what they wished.

Examples of “SOME ‘r FUN” participation by individual First Pioneer branch offices include:

• Enfield, Conn. Branch Office—Buyers at 4-H Beef Sale. The Enfield branch participated in the annual 4-H Steer Auction at the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield, Mass. in September. More than 30 First Pioneer employees and family members showed up and successfully bid $1,307 for a 1,245-lb. Connecticut-grown steer which was later slaughtered. The 750 pounds of usable meat was then donated to three Enfield-area food pantries.

• Riverhead, N.Y. Branch Office—Camp Paquatuck Duck Roast, Red Cross Donation/CPR Training. First Pioneer’s Riverhead office participated in two SOME ‘r FUN events. The first was sponsorship and serving of fresh roasted corn at Camp Paquatuck’s annual Roast Duck Barbecue in East Moriches on Long Island. Proceeds from the barbecue went to the camp, which serves children with mental, emotional and physical disabilities. The branch also donated $650 to the local American Red Cross Chapter and invited Red Cross staff to the office to provide CPR training to branch personnel.

Donations to food banks

First Pioneer customers were delighted to support local food banks simply by attending an annual fall customer meeting at their local branch office.

The Middleboro (Mass.) branch, for example, contributed $1,100 to the Greater Boston Food Bank. Caroline Gilmore, a customer who attended the Middleboro (Mass.) meeting said, “The $20/customer donation to the Greater Boston Food Bank coupled with the total $23,000 donation to 15 food banks around the First Pioneer region is amazing.”

Gilmore, secretary/treasurer of Benson’s Pond, Inc., a cranberry operation in Middleboro and South Carver, added, “The food bank program is the perfect fit for First Pioneer. It allows the organization to team up with agricultural producers [i.e., First Pioneer customers] to support community needs. It’s nice to be affiliated with an organization that reaches out to the community in these ways."

Christine Fesko, owner of Fesko Farms, Inc., of Skaneateles, N.Y., attended the Cortland branch meeting, which generated $1,680 for the Food Bank of Central New York. Fesko, a member of First Pioneer’s board of directors, noted, “I was happy to see First Pioneer step up to help food banks since so many people are in need. It’s rewarding to see how First Pioneer connected production agriculture with consumers in need of food.”

2004 plans underway

CEO Lipinski said that strong community involvement has always been part of First Pioneer’s culture and expected the organization to contribute in a similar manner in 2004.

For example, he noted that the Middleboro branch, under the direction of manager Bill Kiernan, is already planning a ski marathon. First Pioneer team members will solicit sponsor pledges and take turns skiing for designated segments over 24 consecutive hours. Proceeds will be awarded to the Muscular Dystrophy Foundation.

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First Pioneer Farm Credit is the largest provider of credit to Northeast agriculture and natural resource industry. First Pioneer’s customer base includes more than 9,600 member-borrowers across New England, New York and New Jersey. The regional cooperative is part of the nationwide Farm Credit network, which has provided financing and business support services to American agriculture since 1916.

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