Community Engagement
Cargill invests in local communities through economic development, partnerships and giving combined with the volunteer efforts of our employees. Cargill provides corporate support to select national and global nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that serve communities in which we have a business presence. We support partners working within our focus areas of food security, nutrition, and sustainability. And, our businesses and facilities sponsor employee-led groups, called Cargill Cares Councils, which support civic and non-profit organizations in their local communities.
Cargill Cares Councils seek to recognize issues important to our communities; build effective relationships with community leaders; and work to help improve living standards and promote vibrant, stable communities.
Projects in Romania
Cargill Romania celebrates Earth Day 2017
To celebrate Earth Day 2017 in Cargill Romania, 20 Cargill volunteers, in partnership with Plantam Fapte Bune NGO, participated in a foresting action in Silistea Gumesti, Teleorman county, one of the areas in Romania with the lowest percentage of wooded land. Together with volunteers from other companies and children from the local community, we managed to plant 5000 seedlings on 1 ha land area.
Cargill Romania supports the “green” development of Bucu
Cargill employees in Romania celebrated Earth Day by developing another “green” activity for the village of Bucu, Ialomita County, together with our partners, Gardienii Terrei.
In the first part of the day, more than 30 children from the “Sfantul Ierarh Nicolae” School participated in a workshop “Our Earth, tomorrow”, where they learned about Earth Day through activities and games designed to make them aware of how important biodiversity and environment protection are. Together with Gardienii Terrei they identified actions that every person can take in order to maintain the earth as a clean home, where different forms of life can exist in balance and harmony. Through the medium of games, the students also learned how to plant a small tree, therefore preparing them for the planting activity.
The activities continued with the planting of over 1,000 trees, on a public field of 2 hectares, next to a Cargill silo. More than 40 Cargill Romania employees, along with volunteers from Gardienii Terrei and the children from “Sfantul Ierarh Nicolae” school, converted the area, an abandoned site until few weeks ago, into a willow forest. Each child wrote a message for the tree he seeded, giving it his name and promising that he will take care of it in the years ahead.
Cargill brings "Every child in preschool" project in Dolj County
Cargill shows its support towards the Podari community from Dolj County by sponsoring the Ovidiu Rom “Every child in preschool” project here. Cargill started a long term partnership with OvidiuRom Association that aims to give a fair access chance to education for children in Podari.
Ovidiu Rom trains and assists schools and communities to successfully integrate impoverished children into the education system at an early age. “Every Child in Preschool” is a national initiative to get every poor child in Romania in early education programs, preferably at the age of three, so they have a chance of succeeding in school and graduating also. Main beneficiaries of the project are children between ages 3 and 6 whose family lived below the poverty line.
Upon Cargill’s initiative, this program has now reached Dolj County also, leading so far to a number of 63 enrolled children in this project, in three communities: Podari, Braniste and Livezi.
Cargill’s contribution to this project so far is of USD 25,000. In addition to providing food coupons to the families whose children had perfect attendance, these funds covered teacher training and educational resources.
Cargill organized Slobozia football week
Cargill organized Slobozia football week by sponsoring a series of football coaching sessions for local children of all abilities. Cargill coordinated the initiative in association with coaches from Chelsea Football Club’s Foundation – a leading English premier league football club – who ran the sessions. The objective was to help improve the skills of young football players in the region, as well as their coaches in the lalomita county. Activities over the three days included coaching for the children, a football tournament and a ‘master class’ for the football coaches and officials from the Romanian Football Federation.