Pictured (left to right): Greg Cooper, Cooked Meats Plant Manager: Brian Miller, Park Manager for Grand Lake St. Marys; Glenn Cobb, Deputy Director ODNR: Milt Miller, GLSM Commission Fund Raising Chairman; Gary Cooper, Cooper Farms COO; Tom Knapke, Director of GLSM Commission; Jim Zehringer, Ohio Director of Agriculture; Eric Ludwig, Cooper Farms Director of Special Projects.
Milt Miller, Fund Raising Chairman of the Grand Lake St. Marys Restoration Commission, is shown accepting a check for $100,000 from Greg Cooper, Cooked Meats Plant Manager on May 16, 2011 at the Van Wert Cooked Meats Plant. Cooper Farms has donated to Grand Lake St. Marys Restoration Commission a total of $150,000 over the past 2 years.
The money from the races will be used to help finance the Eight Critical Action Priorities from The Grand Lake St. Marys Restoration Strategic Plan.
The primary goal of the Grand Lake Restoration Commission is to ensure that the lake is functional for tourism use this year and every year thereafter. To help address this need, community leaders and volunteers came together in December 2009 to form the Grand Lake St. Marys Restoration Commission – a pioneering initiative dedicated to fostering the regional cooperation and resources needed for the environmental renewal and sustainability to the lake. Our initial efforts primarily focused on identifying the proven scientific strategies and technological solutions able to solve our environmental crisis.