You know that spare-change jar you have sitting on your kitchen counter or corner of your bedroom—the one into which you dump coins from your pocket each night and cash in later to supplement the family vacation or Christmas fund? It’s always surprising to learn how those pennies added up to several hundred extra dollars or more, and you likely didn’t miss those pennies along the way.
Well, if you’ve ever “rounded up” your payment for your order of gun parts, accessories, ammo and more from MidwayUSA, you might know you have been painlessly contributing to the change jar that goes to the fight for your gun rights. Those additional few cents are donated to NRA, which ultimately puts those funds to use to maintain and defend your Second Amendment freedoms. Individually, those pennies aren’t worth much, but cumulatively they have been invaluable. In fact, since the program’s 1992 launch, more than $19 million from your spare change has been donated to NRA for that purpose.
What you might not know is that the two people directly responsible for that idea—MidwayUSA co-founders Larry and Brenda Potterfield—have also conceived of and executed some of NRA’s other critical programs like the Friends of NRA, which has raised more than $800 million toward our 2A fight. And through the MidwayUSA Foundation they have established a $250 million endowment for youth shooting sports, which will permanently fund team shooting programs that exist in about 2,800 of America’s schools. Brenda, an SCI Diana Award winner, also sits on the Executive Committee for NRA’s Women’s Leadership Forum, among her other 2A advocacy contributions.
How and why did these two humble and remarkable individuals come to the decision to devote their lives, much of their wealth and earnings, to NRA and other programs? Watch this exclusive interview with the Potterfields, who sat down with America’s 1st Freedom Editor-in-Chief Frank Miniter at the 2023 SHOT Show to share their story.
