Bridge Builder Award

Agriculture Future of America (AFA) honors one exceptional alumni each year with the Bridge Builder Award. This prestigious award celebrates those who continue to engage with AFA and are making notable contributions in their careers, communities, or the agriculture, food and natural resources industries.

The Bridge Builder Award not only celebrates our distinguished alumni in the industry but also pays tribute to the core principles upon which AFA was founded. Inspired by the timeless poem "The Bridge Builder" by Will Allen Dromgoole, this award embodies AFA's enduring mission to construct bridges that transcend our programs and experiences. AFA continues to forge connections that inspire and uplift, ensuring that our legacy of bridge-building thrives for generations to come.

The Bridge Builder

by Will Allen Domgoole

An old man going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening cold and gray,
To a chasm vast and deep and wide.
Through which was flowing a sullen tide
The old man crossed in the twilight dim,
The sullen stream had no fear for him;
But he turned when safe on the other side
And built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near,
“You are wasting your strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day,
You never again will pass this way;
You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide,
Why build this bridge at evening tide?”

The builder lifted his old gray head;
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followed after me to-day
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm that has been as naught to me
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be;
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him!”