“Doing Good” Series – Rick Gray

Gray (center, leaning on tractor fender) in Uganda.

Part of Massey Ferguson FarmLife Magazine’s  series on farmers and others in agriculture who give ’til it helps: This Massey Ferguson dealership executive is planting seeds. A desire to help others and share his blessings inspires Rick Gray to build an orphanage, school and working farm in Uganda.

Rick Gray has taken five trips to the remote outpost of Kabale, Uganda, with a sixth coming up in June. Staying for as much as three weeks at a visit, the cost for the trips has come out of pocket, but Rick says it has been as good for him as for the people he’s helped. “Every time I go, I come back and realize just how much they’ve helped me.”

Rick is the CEO of Plant-A-Seed, a nonprofit organization based in Modesto, Calif., where Rick lives and works for Stanislaus Implement and Hardware as a territory manager.

The faith-based Plant-A-Seed has undertaken projects in Haiti and Cambodia, as well as closer to home in Modesto. One of the main missions of Plant-A-Seed is for its projects to become self-sustaining. After building a chapel in Kabale in 2006 with his church, Gray continued the work, bringing Plant-A-Seed in on the project to build housing, classrooms and a working farm.

“It’s a kickin’ project, let me tell you,” beams Gray about the school. “When you give these kids hope, and you let them know that they can do it, they feel that self-worth and they move it forward on their own. It’s like a tidal wave.”

Read more about Rick Gray, Plant-A-Seed and the other 7 folks featured in the FarmLife article “Doing Good”, as well as learn about what AGCO is doing to help others around the world.

Who in your community does exceptional charitable work? Tell us in the comments.