On Wednesday, March 25, Fleetwood Bank hosted their annual Agricultural Dinner at the Oley Fair Centre, located at 26 Jefferson Street in Oley, PA. Over 120 local ag professionals kicked off the evening reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to pay tribute to 250 years of America. Jade Smolarski, a Junior FFA member at Oley Valley High School sang the National Anthem, and Jeremy Foose, Chaplain of the Oley FFA, provided the invocation. Generous volunteers of the Oley Fire Company prepared a delicious meal for the guests.<\/p>\n
At the helm of this event was Commercial Lender and Relationship Manager of Fleetwood Bank, Kevin D. Bieber. As an active Board Member of the PA State Fair Association since 1998 and the President of the Oley Fair since 2003, Bieber\u2019s industry connections led to a great evening of speakers and a wonderful representation of the future leaders of agriculture in our area. <\/p>\n
\u201cSeeing a room full of so many hardworking local industry professionals alongside six Berks County FFA Chapters representing the future of ag in our community was something special. Agriculture is the backbone of Pennsylvania\u2019s economy, a state with more young people in ag than any other state throughout our country,\u201d reflected Bieber. Students from the Brandywine Heights, Conrad Weiser, Kutztown, Oley Valley, Schuylkill Valley and Tulpehocken FFA were in attendance.<\/p>\n
Berks County Commissioner Christian Leinbach discussed how important agriculture is to the Berks County Economy. \u201cThe commodities throughout Berks County account for $704 million in Berks County,\u201d he explained. \u201cCombine that with the related industries, such as veterinary services, sciences, and equipment, and this industry is estimated to be valued at $1 billion right here in Berks County. Agritourism alone brings in $39 million in Berks County. The future of farming in Berks County is in our young people, and Fleetwood Bank\u2019s willingness to invest in them and the future of agriculture in Berks County is encouraging,\u201d said Commissioner Leinbach.<\/p>\n
Sally Bollinger, Vice President of the Pennsylvania State FFA Officer team, and Brinley Hess, the 2025 \u2013 2026 Berks County Dairy Princess also addressed the crowd. The keynote speaker was Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture\u2019s Chris Davis, who is the Executive Director of the Commission for Agriculture Education Excellence and Acting Deputy Secretary of Plant Industry and Consumer Protection. This Berks County resident concluded his speech by reminding attendees of the importance of giving someone an opportunity.<\/p>\n
Nationally, community banks are responsible for 80% of all agricultural lending, and as the only bank headquartered in Berks County, lending decisions are made by people you know in our community, deposits stay in our branches throughout Berks County, and Fleetwood Bank is owned by shareholders that you know \u2013 they are your friends and neighbors throughout Berks County. You can\u2019t bank more local than that,\u201d stated Timothy Snyder, President and CEO of Fleetwood Bank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Wednesday, March 25, Fleetwood Bank hosted their annual Agricultural Dinner at the Oley Fair Centre, located at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":["post-171930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}