Farm Safety 4 Just Kids Works to Expand Its Vision
for Safety
Matt Nicol Sponsor Relations Account Executive
Nationwide
614-359-7342
[email protected]
The fact that agriculture has the second highest
fatality rate among youth workers1 keeps Farm Safety
4 Just Kids (FS4JK) founder Marilyn Adams up at
night. Following the tragic death of her 11-year-old son
Keith in a gravity flow wagon, she made it her personal
mission to keep kids safe.
“Our dream at FS4JK is to make sure every child
in the U.S. has an opportunity to learn how to be safe
on farms and in rural settings,” Adams said. “We can
only achieve that goal through our Children’s Safety
Campaign endowment.”
While both individual and
corporate sponsorships drive the
work of FS4JK today, the future
of the organization and its safety
legacy rests on the endowment. After nearly 25 years of
providing educational resources, organizing volunteers
and advocating for children’s safety on farms, FS4JK
looks to expand its efforts throughout the next 25 years
and beyond. Although overall preventable farm-related
injuries have declined by 60% nationally, more work
needs to be done to continually reduce farm-related
injuries and deaths.
FS4JK currently employs nine outreach coordinators
and has 120 chapters across 33 states and four Canadian
provinces. Broadening the organization’s presence into
every state will require a large capital base to ensure the
sustainability of the program. Paramount to its success
will be hiring outreach coordinators who can dedicate
time to safety in each state, while expanding awareness
of FS4JK and organizing volunteers to conduct safety
training events.
The Children’s Safety Campaign endowment will
need the support of both corporate and individual donors
to meet its goal of “reaching every kid on every farm.”
Every dollar given to the Children’s Safety Campaign
will go toward saving the lives of rural children.
To find out more about the endowment and how
you can help keep children safe in your community
visit our Children’s Safety Campaign website www.
farmsafetyforjustkids.org.
Nationwide and Nationwide Agribusiness have
roots in agriculture: Nationwide began as part of the
Ohio Farm Bureau Federation and
Nationwide Agribusiness through
its Iowa-based farm and cooperative
heritage. The Nationwide Foundation
has been a major contributor for
more than 20 years to Farm Safety
4 Just Kids’ focus on local chapter development, aimed
at spreading the safety message to farm, ranch and
rural families, particularly children. Terrance Williams,
president and COO of Nationwide Agribusiness, is
the national chairman of FS4JK’s Children’s Safety
Campaign.
1 Agriculture has the second highest fatality rate among youth
workers at 21.3 per 100,000 full-time equivalents comp