Stonyfield and the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery
Stonyfield Farm in Londonderry, New Hampshire, is grateful to the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery and wanted to do something for the Vermont farm families who helped Stonyfield become one of the largest dairy-products companies in the Northeast.
The organization therefore established the Stonyfield Farm Endowed Scholarship for St. Albans Cooperative Creamery, benefiting students whose families are members or employees of the co-op. Perhaps students will use the scholarship to study agriculture and lead a revival that will enable family farms to prosper by providing the wholesome, affordable foods Americans need. Then again, they may become scientists, poets, or teachers. Regardless, Stonyfield President Gary Hirshberg knows that farm children often don't have the same college opportunities available to students in more populated areas, and he and his sister, Nancy, Stonyfield's vice president of natural resources, hope to help change that.
"If I could say anything to the students who might receive this small scholarship," says Gary Hirshberg, "it would be that it was earned by the members and employees of this fantastic cooperative. Whether or not scholarship recipients choose to go into farming, they should know that someone in their lives worked really hard to make this possible."
In the late 1980s, Stonyfield, a fledgling company at the time, began purchasing its milk from the St. Albans Cooperative. However, Stonyfield's determination to make the transition to an all-organic product line eventually meant purchasing its milk elsewhere. Much of Stonyfield's organic milk still comes from farms in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, so the company continues to support local agriculture, but Hirshberg is saddened that the move to organic products meant ending the partnership with the St. Albans Co-op. "They were, frankly, wonderful to us for 20 years," he says. "We had a terrific relationship."
With its scholarship, Stonyfield has recast that relationship, hoping to help co-op families. They earned it, and Stonyfield is one corporation that understands gratitude.
