ARGIMAX DUNK TANK RAISES MONEY FOR UNITED WAY OF CROOKSTON

On Thursday, AgriMAX presented a check to the United Way of Crookston for $588. AgriMAX matched the donation of their customers according to Betsy Larson. “The customers raised $294,” said Larson. “AgriMAX matched that for a total of $588.”

Tom Rongen said AgriMAX made a dunk tank for their recent research plot tours. The farmers got to dunk their favorite salesman, adding Tom Conati was the preferred target. “Every year we do a tour of our research plots at AgriMAX,” said Rongen. “We get a lot of customers, 250 to 300 people, come to that. And we always thought that there was a better way to help the United Way. So we came up with a dunk tank – Dunk Your Favorite Salesman – and all the salespeople from AgriMAX were volunteering to have the farmers throw softballs at them.”

Rongen said the United Way is an integral part of the community, so they wanted to come up with a fun way to support them. “We think the United Way is an important part of the community and the ag community in the Crookston/Fisher area,” said Rongen. “We thought this was a good way to donate. So, the farmers put in money and threw softballs to dunk people. And we matched whatever they put in.”

United Way Executive Director Lori Wagner said agriculture is a large part of the United Way’s service area and they those who donated. “Tom and I were talking earlier that agriculture is a big part of our area,” said Wagner. “If you put the United Way in the center and put a big umbrella cover 35 miles each way that’s what the United Way covers. I think agriculture is huge, and the agriculture business is huge. The United Way, we fund 23 non-profits and their projects. This was a wonderful event. Everybody had fun and put the name of the United Way out there. So, thank you AgriMAX and everybody that participated.”

Rongen also challenged other agriculture businesses in the area to find fun ways to raise funds for the United Way. “We’d like to challenge any other ag business out in the community that would like to do fun things to raise money for the United Way,” said Rongen. “It’s really fun to get out there and do that stuff and to solve problems in the community.”