Click photo to enlarge

For the latest Learners to Leaders news, click here.

"We're strong believers in giving back to local communities. Our employees are involved in numerous activities to support education initiatives and food programs that feed the hungry. With funding through the Smithfield-Luter Foundation, a nonprofit organization that has offered scholarships for employees' dependents since 2002, we're excited to continue our commitment to community through Learners to Leaders."

C. Larry Pope President and Chief Executive Officer, Smithfield Foods, Inc.

"The Smithfield Foods Learners to Leaders alliance is an invaluable tool for helping our young people fulfill their potential through a postsecondary education. And by utilizing Iowa State’s Science Bound program, we will have the necessary resources to motivate and prepare disadvantaged students to go to college and pursue the technical careers our country needs to compete on a global scale."

Todd Gerken Vice President of Fresh Pork Operations, Farmland Foods

The Smithfield Foods-sponsored Learners to Leaders alliance launched a new website this month at www.learnerstoleaders.com. The website includes information about local Learners to Leaders programs and news about new partnerships.

Learners to Leaders™ is a national educational alliance funded by the Smithfield-Luter Foundation and made up of Smithfield Foods' independent operating companies and local educational partners. The alliance's goal is to help reinforce what the organizers believe is the most critical part of any community's foundation, the education of its residents.

By providing support services to educational institutions and communities through its local programs, the alliance promotes the importance of education and its role in cultivating the skills necessary for individuals to become productive, caring and responsible citizens.

The first Learners to Leaders program was launched in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in time for the 2007-08 school year. The Sioux Falls School District will channel 25 qualified students this year into the business administration curriculum at Southeast Technical Institute, where the Smithfield Foods Learners to Leaders alliance will fund each student’s first year of STI’s two-year Associate of Applied Science (AAS) degree in business administration.

Subsequent programs were launched last year in Denison, Iowa and Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Denison program features Iowa State’s Science Bound program, which has developed a national reputation for increasing the number of diverse students who go to college to pursue science, technology, engineering and mathematics degrees. Learners to Leaders and Science Bound will select Denison students from eighth through 12th grade from disadvantaged backgrounds who have the potential to succeed in college. They include students who are part of ethnic groups that are considered underrepresented in the sciences. Beginning in October 2007, 10 to 15 eighth grade students will be the first to participate in the Learners to Leaders program. Each year an additional class will be added to the program and eventually 60 to 75 eighth through 12th graders will take part.

The Green Bay Learners to Leaders alliance is administered by Green Bay-based Destination Education, a non-profit organization that provides support services to educational institutions and communities to promote the importance of education and its role in cultivating the skills necessary for students to become productive, caring and responsible citizens. The program uses a $75,000 contribution from Smithfield Foods’ Learners to Leaders alliance to focus on students from underprivileged backgrounds who have the potential to succeed in college. They can include first-generation college-bound students, as well as low-income and minority students.

Learners to Leaders will continue to grow in the coming years with additional partnerships to follow in communities across the nation and in Europe.