Yakima Town Hall has received $3,500 from CoBank on behalf of Gene Batali, a member of the cooperative bank’s board. 

Batali is president of Batali Ranch Inc. and has been involved in valley agriculture most of his life.
The donation will be used to help Yakima Town Hall fulfill its mission of enriching the community by bringing nationally and internationally recognized speakers from the literary, political, artistic and business worlds to Yakima’s historical Capital Theatre. 

The 2009-2010 Yakima Town Hall lecture series includes speakers such as political analyst and social commentator David Brooks, National Geographic explorer and best-selling author Dan Buettner, six-time Grammy Award winner Naomi Judd, and family issues expert Geoffrey Canada.

“We certainly appreciate this generous gift from CoBank to support our speaker series,” said Gail Davis, Yakima Town Hall president. “Hearing the diverse and rich stories of our speakers is educational and entertaining, but it can also have a profoundly positive impact on our patrons. This donation will help us continue our 37-year tradition of bringing some of the biggest names in the country to Yakima and subsidizing their appearances so that attendance is affordable to our community members.”

“I’m incredibly proud that the bank is underwriting Yakima Town Hall’s speaker series,” Batali said. 

Yakima Town Hall receives the gift as part of CoBank’s corporate giving program. Through the program, CoBank donated more than $1 million last year to benefit local communities where its employees and directors live and work.