Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Record-setting distribution accented by another $3.67 million for Paramount renovation, expansion

 

The Hormel Foundation board of directors have voted on grant distributions for 2025 to the tune of $26 million which will be distributed to nonprofit organizations in the community for the coming year.    

Additionally, another $3.67 million was approved in support of a major renovation and expansion of the Historic Paramount Theatre.

“The Hormel Foundation board is honored to award these grants that are provided thanks to the hard work and continued success of Hormel Foods’ employees,” said Jeffrey M. Ettinger, Chair of The Hormel Foundation. “The ability to positively impact people of all ages and cultures living in our community is a great responsibility and a wonderful privilege for those of us who serve on the board,” he continued. “We appreciate the organizations who further these missions to help promote a strong, healthy, educated and engaged community.”

This year’s total grant allotments represent a rise over last year’s total of $25.6 million, which continues a beneficial trend Ettinger said on Thursday, a day after this year’s announcement.

“We’ve been able to continue to ratchet up on a record basis,” he said. “Our funding source ultimately is the great work of the company employees at Hormel Foods. They have a very long track record of increasing dividends each year.”

The big news of this latest round of distributions is the out-of-budget grant to the Paramount for its long-expected renovation. 

While more details are forthcoming and will be released by Austin Area Arts at a later day, Ettinger said the group represented well what it was hoping to do.

“We really thought the team from the Paramount tailored the request this year to the right priorities and things that were within an affordable range in terms of what we had available in resources,” Ettinger said. “The board was very impressed overall with what they came forward with this time and we were eager this time to provide that support.”

Funding provided by the Foundation for this project is just one of a line of projects the organization has set aside money for in the past including the MacPhail Center for Music in the Austin High School Annex, the YMCA at the Austin Community Recreation Center and KSMQ’s new facility just to name a few.

Perhaps the biggest to date, however, is money set aside for the proposed FAARM project of $60 million, which will be built in Mower County. Ettinger said that some of those funds have already been supplied for pre-design work on the facility, which is slated to be built just south of Blooming Prairie.

The Hormel Foundation’s grants advance the missions of area nonprofit organizations. Those current organizations are Austin Area Foundation, Austin Community Charitable Fund, Austin Community Growth Ventures, Austin Community Scholarship Committee, Austin Public Schools, Cedar Valley Services, City of Austin, The Hormel Institute UMN, Mayo Clinic Health Systems – Austin, Parenting Resource Center, Riverland Community College, Salvation Army, United Way of Mower County and the YMCA of Austin.

In particular, a large amount of the allocation goes to the Institute.

“Over half of our budget available each year goes to their projects, staffing and needs at the institute,” Ettinger said. “We then have a number of great agencies that are regular members of our board and have been recipients from the foundation.”

The Hormel Foundation, in addition to annual grants and the Paramount Theatre project, has also supported:

• The Hormel Foundation Austin Assurance Scholarship: In partnership with Riverland Community College, Austin High School and Pacelli Catholic Schools, graduating students can obtain a two-year college degree from Riverland Community College tuition-free. 
• MacPhail Center for Music: In partnership with Austin Public Schools, MacPhail Austin is a model for bringing music education to students in rural Minnesota. In less than a decade the program has been built and a state-of-the-art facility developed reaching 1,500 students from Austin and the surrounding area. 
• Austin Community Action Building: The CAB facility integrated the Parenting Resource Center, Michael H. Seibel Family Visitation & Exchange Center, Welcome Center, Children’s Dental Health Services and Minnesota Immigrant Law Office.

The grant process begins with standard agency requests, which are due by Sept. 1 each year. Any extra requests that come in have roughly the same time frame, however if there are scheduling conflicts, the certain adjustments may be made.

In respect to those special requests, groups are invited to present to the board ideas for the project at the center of the request.

It is here and with the existing agencies that Ettinger said he sees some of the most important work being done.

“All 19 of us on the board, it’s our privilege to be in a position to seek to provide benefits to the community,” Ettinger said. 

“I’m really appreciative of not only our board and the work they do on our board, but especially the ones that run the agencies,” Ettinger later continued. “That’s where it happens. With their colleagues and their own boards. They have done just a nice proactive job in trying to make things as good as they can with our community.”