MOUNT OLIVE, N.C. — The University of Mount Olive will host Golden LEAF Foundation President, Chief Executive Officer Scott T. Hamilton, Golden LEAF Board member Lawrence Davenport, and Golden LEAF staff on February 17, 2020 at 1 PM. The roundtable discussion and tour will be held at the Sandy Maddox Agriculture and Education Building located at the George R. Kornegay, Jr. Student Farm at 408 Garner Chapel Road in Mount Olive. The event will focus on agribusiness and agriculture programs funded by the Golden LEAF Foundation. The roundtable will include NC farmers, officials, and participants from and in programs with the following entities:
- University of Mount Olive
- North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission
- Northeast Regional School of Biotechnology and Agriscience (NERSBA)
Since inception, the Golden LEAF Foundation has awarded approximately $2.38 million to support sweet potato research, $400,000 to support the University of Mount Olive’s agriculture programs, and $360,000 to support NERSBA.
The agriculture roundtable will begin at 1 PM with tours to follow.
Several local and state elected officials also will attend the event.
About Golden LEAF
The Golden LEAF Foundation is a nonprofit organization established in 1999 to receive a portion of North Carolina’s funding received from the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with cigarette manufacturers. For 20 years, Golden LEAF has worked to increase economic opportunity in North Carolina’s rural and tobacco-dependent communities through leadership in grantmaking, collaboration, innovation, and stewardship as an independent and perpetual foundation.
The Foundation has provided lasting impact to tobacco-dependent, economically distressed and rural areas of the state by helping create 63,000 jobs, over half a billion dollars in new payrolls and more than 68,000 workers trained or retrained for higher wages. To learn more about the Golden LEAF Foundation, visit www.goldenleaf.org or call 888.684.8404.
The University of Mount Olive is a private institution rooted in the liberal arts tradition with defining Christian values. The University, sponsored by the Convention of Original Free Will Baptists, has education service centers in Mount Olive, New Bern, Wilmington, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, Research Triangle Park, Washington, and Jacksonville. For more information, visit www.umo.edu.
— University of Mount Olive
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