FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 29, 2015
The World’s First Genetic Sanctuary Announced
Piggy Bank is a Charitable Foundation to Create an
Open Source Agriculture Model for Family Farming
Atlanta, Ga. – The movement has begun: Piggy Bank, launched at The Giving Back Fund in September 2015, is a modern-day Noah’s Ark with one goal: to change the future of our food. The mission of Piggy Bank is to create a genetic sanctuary for heritage breed pigs, provide access to free genetics and business plans that enable emerging family farms to succeed. Dedicated to providing the first open-source agriculture platform for responsible family farmers preserving heritage species, the Piggy Bank farm, located in Missouri, will raise pigs to only be gifted.
Piggy Bank is a physical farm made up of 90 pigs, split evenly amongst 10 different heritage breeds. Each heritage breed community consists of nine pigs sourced from bloodlines chosen for efficient breeding purposes and genetic management. This agricultural marvel of endangered breeds will produce approximately 600 offspring each year that will be gifted and never sold. Gifting includes supporting new family farms with herd development, saving existing farms from failure when struck by disaster or sending pigs to culinary schools for research and awareness. Breeds on the farm will include conservancy listed species such as the Mulefoot (critical), Large Black (threatened) and Hereford (watch) and many others.
Brady Lowe, founder of the notable Cochon555 culinary tour known for championing family farming made a long-term commitment that Piggy Bank will be the charity recipient of the tour moving forward.
“The more pigs we gift each year and the more business plans we post online, the deeper the resources for new farmers. The model creates ‘business plan currency’ where farmers requesting free breed-stock will submit a business plan in exchange,” stated founder Brady Lowe. “There is an incredible value of creating a database of business plans written by family farms for family farms. It doesn’t exist anywhere, and best of all Piggy Bank is a model that can be duplicated for any endangered species,” Lowe added. “Every gifted pig has a purpose in the marketplace from developing an open-source culture to correcting our failing food system. The model can undoubtedly add value at all levels of the food chain while educating a global audience of farms, kitchens, culinary schools and more importantly, decisions-makers,” he concluded.
How to Support Piggy Bank:
You can begin to support Piggy Bank by visiting www.piggy-bank.org to learn more, donate, participate at events or engage with the foundation as a strategic partner.
Learn more: Piggy Bank’s physical farm will breed and raise heritage pigs. Piggy Bank contributions will be used to sustain the farm and gift pigs to family farms and culinary schools. Piggy Bank is a pure-breed sanctuary for existing farmers looking to protect the genetics and registered breeds in case of natural disaster. Piggy Bank will support emerging farmers with free breed-stock or help restock founding farms after disease or natural disaster.
Donate: Annual contributions of $1,000 will advance the mission of Open Source Agriculture. Piggy Bank membership includes: access to an online community of strategic partners including exclusive offers; a complimentary invitation for two people to attend the EPIC Founder's Meeting; and, engagement in the movement of providing a safer future of food. A portion is tax-deductible, which will pay for livestock facility, quarantine, feed and labor to raise the heritage pigs in a protected environment.
Participate: Next year, Cochon555, along with its partners, will host a series of culinary events in cities across the country ranging from private dinners, culinary tastings, pop-up butcher shops and even a Kickstarter campaign scheduled to launch with the tour on January 24, 2016.
Engage: Corporate entities interested in improving the state of the world’s family farms through harnessing content to drive positive change can learn more about becoming a strategic partner of Piggy Bank at www.piggy-bank.org.
Be inspired by what is possible and join the Piggy Bank conversation by following @PiggyBankOrg and @Cochon555 on Twitter. Sign up for the newsletter on the website to receive updates on the latest news and events around the country. For more information about Piggy Bank or The Giving Back Fund, please contact Kerith Dilley or visit www.piggy-bank.org.
About Piggy Bank
Launched in 2015 by Brady Lowe, founder of the Cochon 555 US Tour / Taste Network LLC, Piggy Bank is focused on building a sanctuary for heritage breed pigs enabling responsible solutions for emerging farmers and social communities. Piggy Bank is made up of 275 founding donors who collectively believe in a movement, a vision and a set of values rooted in the socially-responsible farming. The sanctuary will change the future of food by uniting a community working together for safer, responsible farming practices and sharing of genetics. Piggy Bank is a project of The Giving Back Fund, Inc., a Massachusetts nonprofit corporation with federal tax exempt status as a public charity under Section 501(c)(3).
About The Giving Back Fund
The Giving Back Fund, Inc. (GBF) is a national public charity that creates and professionally manages charitable foundations and other philanthropic programs for athletes, entertainers, business entrepreneurs and corporations. Since our founding in 1997, our unique structure has allowed donors to direct more of their charitable dollars to causes they care about and less to administrative overhead. To date, The Giving Back Fund has provided philanthropic consulting, management and programming to more than 200 athletes, entertainers, entrepreneurs, and other high net worth individuals. GBF has overseen the distribution of more than tens of millions of dollars in charitable grants within the United States and other countries, and has developed dozens of unique scholarship, mentoring, medical, arts and other philanthropic programs. For additional information, please visit www.givingback.org.
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Contact:
Kerith Dilley | The Giving Back Fund
310.649.5222 | kdilley@givingback.org
www.givingback.org