Initiatives
Every one of our foundations, partnerships and projects is near and dear to us. Browse our website and you will quickly notice the range of our commitment. This section showcases the specific initiatives we’re focusing on right now – and activities we would like to put back into the spotlight.
Engagements from current events
At the end of 2015, when thousands upon thousands of people fled their homes, due to armed conflict, poverty, hunger or political persecution, seeking refuge in Germany and in Wolfenbüttel, one thing was immediately clear: the Mast family would stand shoulder to shoulder with its company and local foundation to provide active support.
While the Mast family donated funds to the local German Red Cross to purchase a property to house unaccompanied, underage refugees and organised donations for a new vehicle for the Wolfenbüttel food bank, the employees of Mast-Jägermeister SE assembled more than 240 care packages to welcome refugees arriving in Wolfenbüttel. The Curt Mast Jägermeister Foundation provided a matching donation of 100 euros for each package, which resulted in a basic budget for a trainee project that supported numerous regional projects for the new residents. For example, the company invited many young refugees to sessions explaining vocational training opportunities in Germany and at Mast-Jägermeister SE.
Mast-Jägermeister SE created additional apprenticeships, and three young people from Syria, Ghana and Afghanistan joined the trainee programme and became active supporters of the initiative – and helpers themselves. Until today, language courses for refugees are offered in the company’s guesthouse in cooperation with the Wolfenbüttel Education Centre. All participants receive free meals in the company canteen on class days, enabling further opportunities for contact and socialising. And that isn’t all: In late 2015, the Curt Mast Jägermeister Foundation set up an additional endowment for the fast, unbureaucratic funding of numerous refugee projects in the city and district of Wolfenbüttel. Further, as part of the initiative “Wir fördern Weltoffenheit [We promote internationalism],” the entrepreneurial family and Mast-Jägermeister SE gave additional support to Wolfenbüttel by assuming the costs for language courses for approximately 160 refugees for two years.
Long-term engagements
Together with its readers, local newspaper “Wolfenbütteler Zeitung” has already sought and found the city’s resident of the year with support from the Curt Mast Jägermeister Foundation for the 5th time. Through volunteering and other contributions, people who enrich community life and culture in Wolfenbüttel make the city more livable and lovable. But all too often, their efforts go unnoticed. The initiative “Wolfenbüttel Resident of the Year” publically honours that valuable commitment while inspiring others to connect with their fellow humans on a local level.
Previous winners: Maik Löhr (2018), Bengin Hesko (2019), Maya Steinbach & Thea Ränger (2020), Vivian Thiel (2022).
To kick off this campaign in 2018, the Curt Mast Jägermeister Foundation also offered a special prize for their “everyday heroes”: members of the local volunteer fire departments. The district children’s and youth fire departments received several new large tents urgently needed for a variety of purposes. As an additional token of appreciation, each of the more than 3,000 active firefighters from Wolfenbüttel city and district received a special-label bottle of Jägermeister.
Wolfenbüttel’s residents of the year 2023 – Ortsgemeinschaft Halchter: Pascal Hoppe, Tobias König und Tobias Liersch. Photo: STEFAN LOHMANN/REGIOS24
The Herzog August Library’s collection of artists’ books was founded in the 1950s with contemporary works by foremost great French painters. To this day, artists have repeatedly approached the artist’s book anew and explored the boundaries of the medium in both traditional and experimental ways.
Bestowed by the Curt Mast Jägermeister Foundation and the Herzog August Library for the first time in 2018, the award for book artistry simultaneously honours Dr. Sabine Solf’s commitment to the library and its holdings. As an art historian, she accompanied the collection’s development and and cultivated ties with the artists. The Artist’s Book Prize, which is being awarded for the fifth time this year and is endowed with €6,000, goes to the artist Clifton Meador, North Carolina/USA, who, in addition to the award, also receives the opportunity to work at the library for up to one month and produce an artist’s book inspired by the HAB collections. For the realization of his artist’s book, the artist takes the Thirty Years’ War as the starting point for an examination of the consequences of war up to the present day.
For this year’s Artists’ Book Prize 23 entries from Germany, the USA, Brazil, Colombia, Pakistan, South Africa, the Netherlands, Russia and Australia were submitted. Winners of the previous years were the Korean artist Hyewon Jang (“Order in Knowledge – Confluence of Inventories”), the New Yorker Marshall Weber (“People’s Library”), the German book artist and typographer Professor Ulrike Stoltz (“Caro Giordano. Resonanzen & Gestrüpp”) and the artist Beldan Sezen (“How does it feel to be trapped in a book?”), who lives and works in New York and Amsterdam.
Video of the live-stream of the event Künstlerbuchpreis 2022: Beldan Sezen: How does it feel to be trapped in a book? – YouTube
Vaccinations save the lives of two to three million children every year. Yet millions of girls and boys are still dying from preventable diseases. Unfortunately, vaccination campaigns often cannot be carried out in good time because funds, which have often already been pledged by institutional donors, are not available quickly enough.
This is where the revolving UNICEF VII Fund, which is to be increased from currently USD 148 million to approx. USD 250 million, intervenes and enables the all-important pre-financing. Together with many other investors, the Mast family supports this fund and is happy to contribute in this way to providing high-quality, inexpensive, life-saving vaccines and urgently needed relief supplies in good time – for every child.
Climate change has also arrived in Germany. Since 2018, over 300,000 hectares of forest have fallen victim to the consequences of climate change – an area that corresponds to about half of the Black Forest. The financing of climate-resilient forests in Germany is becoming a challenge in which everyone must participate. With the forest climate standard behind which the Ecosystem Value Association e. V., based in Bonn and Berlin, aims to create a quality standard for climate certificates that enables forest owners to generate direct income from ecosystem services. On the basis of digital solutions, forest owners can plan and certify their climate protection activities (reforestation and forest conservation) and offer the resulting CO2 certificates for sale. With the help of the quality standard and by purchasing these certificates, companies can make their contribution to climate protection and biodiversity in Germany simply, transparently and without reputational risks.
Florian Rehm is one of the initial supporters of the German forest climate standard.
Continue reading
More information and registration for the initiative’s newsletter at https://waldklimastandard.de/
Engagements from current events
At the end of 2015, when thousands upon thousands of people fled their homes, due to armed conflict, poverty, hunger or political persecution, seeking refuge in Germany and in Wolfenbüttel, one thing was immediately clear: the Mast family would stand shoulder to shoulder with its company and local foundation to provide active support.
While the Mast family donated funds to the local German Red Cross to purchase a property to house unaccompanied, underage refugees and organised donations for a new vehicle for the Wolfenbüttel food bank, the employees of Mast-Jägermeister SE assembled more than 240 care packages to welcome refugees arriving in Wolfenbüttel. The Curt Mast Jägermeister Foundation provided a matching donation of 100 euros for each package, which resulted in a basic budget for a trainee project that supported numerous regional projects for the new residents. For example, the company invited many young refugees to sessions explaining vocational training opportunities in Germany and at Mast-Jägermeister SE.
Mast-Jägermeister SE created additional apprenticeships, and three young people from Syria, Ghana and Afghanistan joined the trainee programme and became active supporters of the initiative – and helpers themselves. Until today, language courses for refugees are offered in the company’s guesthouse in cooperation with the Wolfenbüttel Education Centre. All participants receive free meals in the company canteen on class days, enabling further opportunities for contact and socialising. And that isn’t all: In late 2015, the Curt Mast Jägermeister Foundation set up an additional endowment for the fast, unbureaucratic funding of numerous refugee projects in the city and district of Wolfenbüttel. Further, as part of the initiative “Wir fördern Weltoffenheit [We promote internationalism],” the entrepreneurial family and Mast-Jägermeister SE gave additional support to Wolfenbüttel by assuming the costs for language courses for approximately 160 refugees for two years.
Long-term engagements
Wolfenbüttel’s residents of the year 2023 – Ortsgemeinschaft Halchter: Pascal Hoppe, Tobias König und Tobias Liersch. Photo: STEFAN LOHMANN/REGIOS24
Together with its readers, local newspaper “Wolfenbütteler Zeitung” has already sought and found the city’s resident of the year with support from the Curt Mast Jägermeister Foundation for the 5th time. Through volunteering and other contributions, people who enrich community life and culture in Wolfenbüttel make the city more livable and lovable. But all too often, their efforts go unnoticed. The initiative “Wolfenbüttel Resident of the Year” publically honours that valuable commitment while inspiring others to connect with their fellow humans on a local level.
Previous winners: Maik Löhr (2018), Bengin Hesko (2019), Maya Steinbach & Thea Ränger (2020), Vivian Thiel (2022).
To kick off this campaign in 2018, the Curt Mast Jägermeister Foundation also offered a special prize for their “everyday heroes”: members of the local volunteer fire departments. The district children’s and youth fire departments received several new large tents urgently needed for a variety of purposes. As an additional token of appreciation, each of the more than 3,000 active firefighters from Wolfenbüttel city and district received a special-label bottle of Jägermeister.
The Herzog August Library’s collection of artists’ books was founded in the 1950s with contemporary works by foremost great French painters. To this day, artists have repeatedly approached the artist’s book anew and explored the boundaries of the medium in both traditional and experimental ways.
Bestowed by the Curt Mast Jägermeister Foundation and the Herzog August Library for the first time in 2018, the award for book artistry simultaneously honours Dr. Sabine Solf’s commitment to the library and its holdings. As an art historian, she accompanied the collection’s development and and cultivated ties with the artists. The Artist’s Book Prize, which is being awarded for the fifth time this year and is endowed with €6,000, goes to the artist Clifton Meador, North Carolina/USA, who, in addition to the award, also receives the opportunity to work at the library for up to one month and produce an artist’s book inspired by the HAB collections. For the realization of his artist’s book, the artist takes the Thirty Years’ War as the starting point for an examination of the consequences of war up to the present day.
For this year’s Artists’ Book Prize 23 entries from Germany, the USA, Brazil, Colombia, Pakistan, South Africa, the Netherlands, Russia and Australia were submitted. Winners of the previous years were the Korean artist Hyewon Jang (“Order in Knowledge – Confluence of Inventories”), the New Yorker Marshall Weber (“People’s Library”), the German book artist and typographer Professor Ulrike Stoltz (“Caro Giordano. Resonanzen & Gestrüpp”) and the artist Beldan Sezen (“How does it feel to be trapped in a book?”), who lives and works in New York and Amsterdam.
Video of the live-stream of the event Künstlerbuchpreis 2022: Beldan Sezen: How does it feel to be trapped in a book? – YouTube
Vaccinations save the lives of two to three million children every year. Yet millions of girls and boys are still dying from preventable diseases. Unfortunately, vaccination campaigns often cannot be carried out in good time because funds, which have often already been pledged by institutional donors, are not available quickly enough.
This is where the revolving UNICEF VII Fund, which is to be increased from currently USD 148 million to approx. USD 250 million, intervenes and enables the all-important pre-financing. Together with many other investors, the Mast family supports this fund and is happy to contribute in this way to providing high-quality, inexpensive, life-saving vaccines and urgently needed relief supplies in good time – for every child.
Climate change has also arrived in Germany. Since 2018, over 300,000 hectares of forest have fallen victim to the consequences of climate change – an area that corresponds to about half of the Black Forest. The financing of climate-resilient forests in Germany is becoming a challenge in which everyone must participate. With the forest climate standard behind which the Ecosystem Value Association e. V., based in Bonn and Berlin, aims to create a quality standard for climate certificates that enables forest owners to generate direct income from ecosystem services. On the basis of digital solutions, forest owners can plan and certify their climate protection activities (reforestation and forest conservation) and offer the resulting CO2 certificates for sale. With the help of the quality standard and by purchasing these certificates, companies can make their contribution to climate protection and biodiversity in Germany simply, transparently and without reputational risks.
Florian Rehm is one of the initial supporters of the German forest climate standard.
Continue reading
More information and registration for the initiative’s newsletter at https://waldklimastandard.de/
