ROYAL CITY — The Royal City Food Bank has received a $2,500 donation from America’s Farmers Grow Communities, sponsored by the Monsanto Fund and selected by local farmer Pat Lee, Jr. of Grant County.

The donation will help the organization purchase basic food items and pay for facility rent and utilities. This money will help the families that visit the food bank each week.

“In December and January we served 150 households (approximately 650 family members) each week,” Food Bank Director Dorothy Lee (Pat’s mom) said. “We’ll use the money from this grant to buy basic food items that are not provided by Community Services of Moses Lake, Northwest Harvest, or Second Harvest. Some we’ll use to pay building rent, utilities, and insurance.”

“We want to thank Patrick for buying from Monsanto and for this generous gift from them. We will use it wisely,” Dorothy added.

For six years, America’s Farmers Grow Communities has collaborated with farmers to donate more than $22 million to more than 8,000 community organizations across rural America.

Winning farmers direct donations to nonprofits to help fight rural hunger, purchase life-saving fire and EMS equipment, support Ag youth leadership programs, buy much needed classroom resources, and much more.

America’s Farmers Grow Communities partners with farmers to support local nonprofit causes that positively impact farming communities across rural America.

Grow Communities is one program in the America’s Farmers community outreach effort, sponsored by the Monsanto Fund.

Other programs include America’s Farmers Grow Ag Leaders, which encourages rural youth to remain in agriculture and provides $1,500 college scholarships to high school and college students pursuing ag-related degrees.

And there is America’s Farmers Grow Rural Education, which works with farmers to nominate rural school districts to compete for $10,000 and $25,000 math and science grants.