WHITESTOWN, Ind. – The world’s largest maker of popcorn, based in Indiana, is adding to a kettle of money helping families of fallen and disabled military veterans. Weaver Popcorn Manufacturing recently came out with its own brand of ready-to-eat popcorn to financially benefit Folds of Honor.

Folds of Honor provides $5,000 scholarships nationwide to children and spouses of military men and women whose loss of life or disabling injuries resulted from their active duty in the U.S. armed forces.

Proceeds from sales of the new brand will be donated to the scholarship fund, which already has hundreds of corporate sponsors like Budweiser, Coca Cola, American Airlines and Red Gold, a major supplier of tomatoes and tomato-based products.

“Every time you’re eating a bag of their popcorn, you’re truly potentially impacting your neighbor and your actual community,” said Diane Markle, regional impact officer with the Folds of Honor branch in Indiana.

White cheddar and sea salt flavored bags of the new “Pop Weaver” brand recently began hitting store shelves nationwide, said Tim Ingle, chief operating officer for Weaver Popcorn Manufacturing. More ready-to-eat flavors and microwavable bags of the brand to help the scholarship fund are planned, he said.

Ingle said how much revenue from each sale will go to the scholarship fund was still being decided. “If we can grow and be able to make sizable donations from every case sold, that’s basically the model we like to do,” he said.

Ingle said Weaver Popcorn Manufacturing, headquartered in Whitestown, is involved with 71 percent of the popcorn distributed worldwide.

Until the release of Pop Weaver, the firm, with three manufacturing plants in Indiana and one in Pennsylvania, has been strictly a producer for other companies, including a majority of the most popular commercial brands.

Ingle said microwave brands more than double the sales of their ready-to-eat versions, but already popped corn in bags has been closing the gap in recent years.

Higher demand for popcorn across the board is one of the reasons he cited for quadrupling the size of the company’s production facility at Whitestown in recent years.

He said some of the added space is being used to make the Pop Weaver brand but there’s still plenty of room to further increase production.

“Our national brands are growing. We’ve taken on their growth,” he said.

Folds of Honor was founded in 2007 when Lt. Col. Dan Rooney returned home to Oklahoma from his second tour of duty in Iraq on a flight carrying the remains of Corp. Brock Bucklin.

Rooney watched family members of the deceased, including his young son, Jacob, greet the flag draped casket.

The motivation he felt to help military families with lives drastically changed by combat gave birth to Folds of Honor, which has awarded some 35,000 scholarships ever since. Fifty four of those scholarships were given in Indiana last year.

Markle said the help with tuition is for college, trade school and other forms of post-secondary education. “We choose to meet sacrifice with hope,” she said.

Ingle said tying the knot with Folds of Honor stems from a country music concert he attended in 2018. The main performer was Big & Rich and during the show, veterans in the audience were called to the stage to be recognized.

Ingle said the display of sacrifice and patriotism left such an impression he went straight to the top when later asked about the company’s interest in becoming a sponsor of the scholarship fund.

He said about 100 of the 600 employees at Weaver Popcorn Manufacturing are military veterans.

The snack maker receives its popcorn from Weaver Bulk, a sister company whose main growers are in states like Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Nebraska.

Markle said the fourth-generation family-owned company, making products in America with a good-sized number of veterans in their workforce, strongly reflects the personality of the not-for-profit group. “We are a faith, family-focused organization,” she said.

Folds of Honor recently made families of fallen or disabled police officers, firefighters and ambulance workers eligible for scholarships.

Applications for the next round of scholarships will be accepted from Feb. 1 to March 31.

The scholarships can also go toward private school tuition and tutoring for children in grades K-12.

“We assure the family does not have to carry out the economic weight alone.  Whatever the need is we meet them where they are,” she said.