When I started this research project, I wanted to look into how three local Chippewa Falls, WI businesses contributed to their community.  As I did my research, I came to realize that two of the three businesses did not have any information on that.  I then narrowed my research question further into just one of them, the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company.  I had to adjust and expand on my question a little bit, also.  I not only had the question of how they contribute to the community, but also how did they stay successful throughout their history?

In regards to how the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewery has contributed to the community, I learned from my research that the Brewery started an event called Canoes for a Cause, where they hold events in various cities and clean up trash, debris, and invasive plant species from the riverbanks.  They do this to help the cities have cleaner waterways.  The event has gotten bigger and bigger every year.

As to how they stayed successful throughout the years, I learned that during the Prohibition the Brewery had to adjust.  They started making Leino, a non-alcoholic beverage.  When that didn’t really sell, they had to adjust again and started making and bottling soda water.

I would like to expand more on their history as a business and also has a family.  It is interesting to me on how the business has gone through the family.  It would be nice to touch on that also.

My third resource actually comes from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire’s News Bureau.  The article was written by Janice Wisner in 2000.  The article is about how Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company is donating $25,000 for the UW-Eau Claire Foundation and the new Jacob Leinenkugel College of Business Scholarship program.  There would be six $1,000 scholarships over the course of five years.  The reasoning behind donating this money and creating the scholarship program was because many of the business student graduates from UW-Eau Claire have worked for Jake Leinenkugel at the Brewery.  The director of UW-Eau Claire’s American Ethnic Coordinating Office says, “By creating these scholarships, we pave the way for students of diverse backgrounds to pursue their education and position themselves to face the challenges that will exist in the workforce when they graduate.”

This article is very kairotic. It was written at the same time as the scholarship program was announced.  Everyone, I’m sure, was very excited about this because it will help students with the financial part of things.  The audience of this article is people in the Eau Claire area, more specifically people who attend or work at UW-Eau Claire because it was published by the UW-Eau Claire News Bureau.  The purpose of Wisner writing this article is to talk about and explain a major event happening at the University.

I think that the article was very helpful in expanding on how the Leinenkugel Brewery contributes to the community.  The fact that it was written by somebody at UW-Eau Claire may have a bias on it, but for the most part I got the feeling that Jake Leinenkugel was doing it to better the students and give them opportunities.  Finding this article, I decided to just focus on the Leinenkugel Brewery and how it contributes to the community.  I wasn’t able to find anything on the other two companies.