Volunteers help bring ‘grand’ back to stands at Madison County Fairgrounds

A global initiative came to Highland to help give the grandstands at the Madison County Fairgrounds a fresh coat of paint.

On Sept. 28, local volunteers with Trouw Nutrition donned their royal blue “Community Day” shirts and spent eight hours painting the stadium seating. Tina Wuebbels, a human resource representative with Trouw, said the project goes hand-in-hand with the company’s overall goal.

“We wanted to give back to the local agricultural community,” Wuebbels said.

Trouw is an agriculturally based company that blends the vitamins and premixes that go into animal feed for both pet and livestock foods. Trouw is part of an international organization based out of the Netherlands called Nutreco.

Nutreco has locations in more than 30 countries and has 11,000 employees worldwide, according to Mike Hooper, the director of Trouw livestock division in Highland.

As part of a way to give back, Nutreco decided to develop a global initiative called, “Community Day.” Now, each year in September, each location chooses a community-based project to complete. Hooper said this was Trouw’s first year participating with Community Day, and local employees chose to give back to the Madison County Fair, because the fair also supports the local agriculture.

“It’s giving us an opportunity to get to know each other just a little better, and at the same time, put a little pride into the work that we are doing and what we typically do in the global industry,” Hooper said.

When Trouw came to the Madison County Fair Board, they were told that the grandstand needed to be painted. So, from 8 a.m. on a Thursday morning to 4 p.m. that afternoon, volunteers crawled over the stadium, and while rocking out to a blaring radio, they painted.

Donna Zobrist, a member of the Madison County Fair Board, decided to help with the job.

“We just thank them very much, because that is a big task to take on,” Zobrist said. “But, with a lot of people, you can accomplish a lot.”

This story was originally published October 11, 2017 at 11:22 AM with the headline "Volunteers help bring ‘grand’ back to stands at Madison County Fairgrounds."