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Giving Back to — and Through — Our Employees

It’s impossible to separate a company’s passion from the people who make it work every day. Our employees are proud to support Earthbound Farm’s mission to share the benefits of organic food — and in turn, Earthbound Farm supports our employees’ passions for other causes, as well.

Each month we donate to a nonprofit organization nominated by our employees. An Employee Charity Donation Program committee meets monthly to review the nominated organizations and to select the charities to receive awards that month. Here are some of the charitable organizations our program has supported.

Employee Scholarship Program

Earthbound Farm employees make the fulfillment of our mission possible — some have been with us since the earliest days of our company. To honor all of them, we’ve created two renewable scholarships that are awarded each year to children of employees headed to college or other post-secondary education. It’s a smart investment in all our futures.

Meet our 2008 scholarship recipients:

Maria Garcia, daughter of Alicia Sandoval in our San Juan Bautista Production department, is a graduate student working toward her Master of Social Work degree at California State University, Stanislaus. She’s earned the respect of her professors with “complex, scholarly work,” and she’s been recognized as an “outstanding student who will make a significant contribution” to her chosen field. Peers and coworkers know Maria for her dedication to helping others — in addition to the demands of her work-study schedule, she’s helping her younger sister through school. Maria believes in the power of social work to help everyone have a better quality of life, and her goal is to become a social worker/counselor working with children and teens, helping make sure their basic needs are met so they can learn, grow, and become successful, productive members of society.

Gerardo Lopez, son of Blanca Lopez in our Yuma Production department, graduated from Kofa High School in Yuma and plans to enter the Pre-Architectural Studies program at Arizona State University, Tempe. As a student athlete, Gerardo earned the respect of his coaches, teachers, and peers with his creativity and natural leadership. Extraordinary dedication and drive enabled him to grow “from a scared, inexperienced freshman into one of the best heavyweight division wrestlers in Arizona,” according to his coach, and brought him back from a near career-ending injury that sidelined him during his junior year to being named to the Yuma Sun/Rotary All-Region Team in his senior year. In addition to his athletic talent, Gerardo is an accomplished artist and fan of the great architect Frank Lloyd Wright. “I want to be remembered for the beauty my architecture brings to its surroundings.”