Following a two-week social media campaign called Back to Ag, Farm Credit Canada (FCC) donated $100,000 to a program aimed at helping farmers and agricultural workers return to work after a life-altering injury.
“We exceeded our expectations in terms of reaching people and raising awareness of this important issue and we sincerely thank the thousands of people, the media and online community who responded,” said Greg Stewart, FCC president and CEO. “It’s such a worthy cause, and the response was truly overwhelming and heart-felt.”
Launched on May 29, the Back to Ag social media campaign achieved over 18,000 tweets, retweets, likes and shares on Twitter and Facebook and potentially reached as many as 2.3 million Canadians. FCC offered to donate $1 (up to $100,000) to the Back to Ag program for every tweet or retweet on Twitter and every like or share on Facebook, but decided to donate the full amount as a result of the positive response to the program.
“Safety is so important on the farm but the reality is incidents sometimes happen. We wanted to raise awareness that returning to work post-injury is possible in many situations, and this program will help make that happen,” Stewart said.
The Back to Ag program is also supported by the Rick Hansen Foundation, which is dedicated to improving the lives of those with spinal cord injuries and other disabilities, and the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association (CASA), a national non-profit organization dedicated to improving the health and safety of farmers, their families and workers.
CASA will manage the Back to Ag program, which will allow injured farmers and agricultural workers to apply for funding for the purchase of specialized equipment or adaptation of existing equipment in order to get them back to farming. Applications and “how to apply” instructions will be available this fall on the CASA website at www.casa-acsa.ca.
FCC is a long-time partner and supporter of CASA and a major annual sponsor of Canadian Agricultural Safety Week.
