“They’re life principles,” he said. “And if we can help our community embody those more, than our chances of succeeding as a society together are just that much greater.”

In an effort to share those values with the surrounding community, CJ Bio America recently partnered with a local author and a local artist to write, illustrate and publish a children’s book. And once the book was published, the company donated one to each second grader in Webster County.

“Chessie and JoJo Make Their Way” was written by Julie Hoesel and illustrated by Jennifer Dutcher. The book features three stories with the characters of Chessie the chicken and JoJo the pig as they encounter different situations and learn different lessons.

“Each story focuses on positive values,” Hoesel said. “The first story, the characters are competing with each other on a project and one of them has to pause their efforts to help somebody who is in need, so making that decision to go ahead and help rather than continuing on what she’s doing to win the competition.”

-Submitted photo Heather Farrell, business affairs coordinator for CJ Bio America; author Julie Hoesel; illustrator Jennifer Dutcher; and Luke Palmer, CJ Bio America senior operations manager, pose with the newly-published “Chessie and JoJo Make Their Way” children’s book.

Chessie and JoJo were envisioned as a pig and a chicken because those are the animals for which CJ Bio America makes amino acids to be added to their feed. Hoesel also wanted to use the initials C and J because of CJ Bio America.

“As for the stories themselves, the situation that Chessie and JoJo are in just came to me from all the kids that I’ve cared for over the years — my own and in daycare and teaching and my grandchildren,” she said.

She wanted something that kids could relate to.

“It was amazing working with the talented Jennifer Dutcher — the illustrations were as if she picked them right out of my imagination,” Hoesel said.

CJ Bio America originally printed about 2,000 copies of the book and have roughly 800-1,000 remaining.

“I don’t think we’ll ever sell them because that goes against why we did it,” Palmer said. “Our plan is to distribute them annually to the second graders so this is something we hope to continue every year.”

The company did offer copies to employees if they wanted them for their own children and plans to donate a few copies to the Fort Dodge Public Library.

“This is something that is really unique that we could do for the community,” Palmer said. “When I first started at CJ my first job was trying to help imbed CJ into the community. Because I’m from Fort Dodge and I’ve been here my whole life and that philosophy of working with the community instead of just working in the community, that really rang true for me.”