Over one hundred people gathered inside the Jacksonville High School auditorium yesterday afternoon for the presentation of two donations to the Illinois 4-H and Illinois FFA Foundation.
These donations of $60,000 to each program came from Dakota Access Pipeline LLC, who’s currently on a four-state donation tour to various counties where the pipeline runs through. After a brief presentation followed by a question-and-answer session, representatives from Dakota Access Pipeline presented the $60,000 checks to both the Illinois 4-H and Illinois FFA Foundation.
Dakota Access Pipeline Communications Director Lisa Dillinger was on hand to present the checks. Dillinger says being a good neighbor is a top priority for the company, and also explains some of the reasons why the company chose 4-H and the FFA as recipients of the donations.
“Being a good member of the community is a commitment that our company makes, so with every project there is some community involvement. With Dakota Access Pipeline we’ve crossed four states and fifty counties, so that’s a large endeavor, and we were looking for a way to reach everybody, so that was a whole process to figure out. So this has been a brainchild of what we would do for a long time. Also since some of our counties that we go to are quite rural, we were looking for programs that would exist in those counties. So we were excited that 4-H and FFA had chapters and organizations along that route and will be able to assist those kids,” Dillinger explains.
She talks more about the two recipient organizations and what they bring to their respective communities.
“4-H and FFA are organizations that have great values, and they support the youth throughout all of the counties that we cross. It’s really important for us to team with these sort of organizations to show that we really care about each community, and the youth are the ones that are going to run our tomorrow and be there to make these communities great, so we really wanted to be a part of that,” Dillinger says.
The $60,000 donations to 4-H and FFA will each be split evenly between the 12 Illinois counties, giving each county, including Morgan and Scott, $5,000 each.
As previously reported, aside from the donations to the FFA and 4-H, Dakota Access Pipeline also donated $20,000 to the Emergency Management Agencies of the 12 Illinois counties effected by the pipeline, including both Morgan and Scott Counties.