Tyson Complex Manager Jess Chadick shows off his special thank you poster from Ball Pre-K students. The gift was to show their support to Tyson for helping purchase learning backpacks for students.
(Seguin) – Tyson Foods is not only “Feeding you like family,” it’s also supporting its family with educational resources.
Tyson Foods recently was recognized by the staff at Ball Early Childhood Center for donating matching funds which will help cover the cost of its “Making Learning Fun at Home” program.
Seeking the grant for the Seguin ISD campus was Pre-K Bilingual Teacher Dee Molina. Molina says thanks to Tyson Foods, kids now have the right tools to be successful.
“This project was called Making Home Learning Fun and they are transition backpacks with learning materials. It has scissors, pencils, colors, alphabet letters, numbers through 20. All these education materials they can use at home and it has a calendar of activity for the parents to follow in English and Spanish being that it is a bilingual classroom, and they are not cheap. And it’s a wonderful, wonderful project that was developed by two teachers in New York because we spend so much money on consumable materials and that’s where you can go get funded. So, we really appreciate Tyson for doing this and this is the first year that they’ve done this, so we are lucky, and they’ve funded several projects for Seguin so we are grateful,” said Molina.
Molina says when these type of grant opportunities become available, she is reminded of the generosity of local businesses such as Tyson who step up and show their support.
“Donor.org is kind of like a GoFund for public education teachers nationwide and teachers can write to ask for any materials they want for their students. Tyson is matching donations, so I have an anonymous donor from Maryland that gave $300. Tyson comes and matches this. Allstate has also matched some funds for us and so because of that funding you are able to get all of these materials free for your students and they ship it to your school. You can write grants under technology. You can write grants under literacy. You can write grants under STEM projects. They have guidelines that you have to follow and one of the things that we have to do is we have to show through photos the kids using the materials in the classroom or at home and so this is the beginning. We have to thank the major donor which was Tyson for this donation because this is over $800,” said Molina.
Molina says the best part of the process might just have been the simplicity of applying for the funds.
“Tyson had already told us that they would fund projects in Seguin for teachers because we have a plant here. Because Tyson is doing a campaign for education this year, they will match funds for teachers up to $1,000 so we had the opportunity to go ahead and write those grants and submit them and then they will go in there and rate them and they select, and they send you an email overnight and say ‘Guess what? Your project is getting funding. It’s on its way and we get it,” said Molina.
Although kids were gifted with backpacks, it was perhaps Tyson’s Complex Manager Jess Chadick who walked away with the best gift of all that day. Not only was he given a handmade thank you sign and Easter basket, but he was also serenaded by an excited group of pre-k students.
“Mucho gracias. Mucho gracias…a Tyson…. We say thank you. We say thank you for our backpacks, for our backpacks. We say thank you. We say thank you…to Tyson….”
Chadick says his visit to Ball was definitely a highlight. He says going around presenting checks throughout area communities on behalf of Tyson Foods is always the best part of his job.
“We have an application process that is available for any groups or schools mainly in some of the public schooling type deals or food banks. We’ve done one of those lately and that application process is pretty self-explanatory. People can go online on the Tyson.com website and find the avenue to go in for the application. There is a choice that we make in those but schools, mostly anything that is located in the communities where we have facilities really has a good chance of getting grants through our company and to me, the more people that apply for it, the better. So, I encourage people to look at Tyson and look at what the application process is. Fill it out to their needs and apply for it because I’m here to tell you we do it all the time and it’s something that our company takes pride in,” said Chadick.
Those wishing to learn more about Tyson’s corporate giving are encouraged to visit TysonFoods.com.