To honor the memory of a longtime GROWMARK employee, the GROWMARK Foundation has committed 100 blue corduroy jackets to FFA members in Illinois — 25 each year from 2019 to 2022.
Applications for this year’s jackets are now open, with a deadline of midnight Sept. 10 CT.
FFA members are asked to answer the question “What does the FFA jacket mean to you?” and share the main goal they wish to accomplish as an FFA member.
The employee who this effort honors, Mike Builta, died unexpectedly in April 2019. Builta was raised on a family farm near Bellflower, Illinois, and was an active FFA member and lifelong supporter of agricultural education. He held GROWMARK System management roles at Christian County Farmers Supply Company in Taylorville, Illinois and GRAINCO FS in Ottawa, Illinois, before becoming GROWMARK vice president of Energy and Logistics in 2018. GROWMARK is an agricultural cooperative serving almost 400,000 customers across North America.
The GROWMARK Foundation is focused on programs and activities which support: the vitality of the industry of agriculture; agriculture education and consumer understanding of agriculture’s contributions to society and the economy; agricultural leadership development; and education about the benefits of the cooperative way of doing business.
