Auction of old machines helps young people learn

The AGCO factory in Wolfenbüttel (Lower Saxony) produces the Rotana round balers and baler-wrapper combination for Fendt. Last summer the assembly line was extensively rebuilt. During the modernization old and unused production machines, tools, furniture or even a decades-old forklift truck were sorted out. The discarded inventory was auctioned off among the employees at the end of 2020.

“Our renovations and clean-up campaigns have yielded many things that are not needed for series production but are still in very good condition. Through the auction, our employees were also able to benefit from the clean-up activities. Donating the proceeds to a good cause locally was a foregone conclusion”, explains Jakob Arnold, factory manager in Wolfenbüttel.

An auction on site was not possible due to the Covid-19 restrictions. For this reason the employees were able to hand in bids within a time frame of three weeks. If these were similarly high, the employees were informed and had the chance to raise their offer.

The auctions raised a total donation of 15.000 euros, which was handed over on March 4th to Ulrike Hesselbach, First Chairwoman of the Kinderschutzbund Wolfenbüttel. The donation will be used for the “Besser vorher Nachhilfe” project. With this project, the Kinderschutzbund offers tutoring to elementary school students who show learning deficits due to homeschooling in the Corona pandemic. “Knowledge gaps that build up at the beginning of school life in particular are difficult to compensate for later on”, says Ulrike Hesselbach, explaining the background to the project. The tutoring is provided by a teacher at the local elementary school.