Ralph Broetje had given up on the cherries. They hadn’t produced for four years. Ralph and his team of workers were pulling out their chainsaws when he had an idea: “Maybe we should give the cherry trees to ministry,” he said to his wife, Cheryl. “They’ll be the first fruits of the season that we give away.”

The next year the cherries flourished.

A decade later, the branches are heavy with ripe fruit. The 50-acre crop is good this year—in quality and size. The workers pick quickly, knowing all profits from this crop will be given away and that they’ll decide where the money will go.

“They get to choose. Should it be Brazil? Africa?” asks Sanjay Broetje (pronounced BRO-chee), who works for his parents’ business, fittingly named First Fruits of Washington. Last year, the workers chose to donate nearly $400,000 from the First Fruits’ cherry crop to World Vision’s work with children in Africa who are affected by HIV/AIDS.

“What is happening to the children of Africa, the children of the streets—we need to help,” says Raul Zaragoza, 41, an orchard worker from Mexico.

Giving a company’s profits away to missions every year is unusual. Letting your workers decide where they will go is even more curious. First Fruits of Washington is no ordinary company.

This $60-million business, one of the largest privately held orchards in the world with 5,300 acres of fruit (primarily apples), does business a different way. Here, people are valued more than profits.

Under the bright skies of eastern Washington, orchard workers are as carefully tended and loved as the trees. The growth process is not always smooth, but the vision of the orchard never changes. It is a place where people can love God and serve one another. Even as apples are the company’s primary crop, cherries are the “first fruits” from which the Broetjes donate their profits.

Click here for list of recent recipients