Summer is just around the corner. For Rainer Masche and his friends, this is the most beautiful time of the year. After all, Rainer, a fleet management employee at OeTTINGER’s headquarters since 1995, is passionately involved in the Großlellenfeld Horticultural Association in Ansbach, north of Oettingen. Rainer is a gardening enthusiast who has been a member of the Association since 2003 and now chairs its board. Alongside his job, he also works up to 20 hours a week for this project, which is very close to his heart – and he enjoys it most when he is working with friends and family.
Rainer explains his love of nature and gardening: “It’s always lovely to see when something I’ve planted blooms – it never ceases to amaze.” Over the course of the year, he and around 80 green-fingered companions have planted a huge array of trees, flowers and hedges, transforming countless green spaces in the process. In so doing, they have gradually made this little place with approximately 500 inhabitants ever more beautiful over the years. The people from in and around Großlellenfeld love the work that the Association does: The simply stunning fruits of their labor can be seen at several places in the area.
The members value one another and support each other whenever possible. Rainer says: “We also lend each other gardening tools so that people don’t have to buy an expensive tool if they’re not going to use it that often. But the best thing for me is seeing how much these people love nature and how much joy they take in it.” However, Rainer’s ambitions for the Association go beyond merely tending to pretty flowers. He wants to make a statement against the monoculture of industrial agriculture and help to maintain ecological equilibrium in the area.
Donation from the personnel development program to be used for new benches
The members regularly organize events and workshops. These range from tree pruning courses, a flower exchange or the annual children’s sunflower competition, ensuring that life with the Association is colorful and varied. Now, thanks to the OeTTINGER Brewery personnel development program, the Association can enjoy a check for EUR 1,250 – a donation which is urgently needed. A delighted Rainer comments: “Our local area and surrounding region are very popular with vacationers and day trippers, who enjoy the peaceful, natural surroundings here. Unfortunately, the benches in the center of Großlellenfeld have seen better days and are no longer particularly inviting. Thanks to OeTTINGER’s amazing donation, we can now restore them. And we even have some money left over, which we will spend on plants and tools. We are now ready for summer to arrive!”
Carolin Käfferlein, who is involved with the Federal Neurofibromatosis Association, and Tobias Rieß, who supports the Fürnheim Evangelical Rural Youth Association, also gladly accepted donations from the OeTTINGER personnel development program in addition to Rainer Masche.