Toledo-Based Rake Force Receives $30,000 in Grants and Discounts for New Equipment

It’s been a busy year so far for the Rake Force, a veteran-owned regenerative agroforestry and conservation startup based in Toledo. 

What started as a small venture to provide therapeutic work to veterans while restoring forest land in 2021 has grown over the last two years into a full-fledged defense operation, serving the community by working to prevent catastrophic forest fires. 

Rake Force founders Jake Dailey and Brian Dennis expect the business to get even busier going forward thanks to $30,000 worth of grants and discounts the business has received so far this year for new equipment. 

That money has so far allowed Rake Force to acquire a log splitter, a sawmill, a woodchipper and a dump trailer to aid in its operations, which include goat grazing, forestry maintenance, soil amendment and biochar production. 

Rake Force has also partnered with Maren-Go Solutions Corp., a fellow veteran-owned company based in Washington that develops autonomous vehicles and other military tech, for use of an MTT-154 autonomous vehicle, which can transport material between locations — saving workers wheelbarrow trips — and help out in potentially-dangerous situations such as felling trees.  

“Good things have been happening these past few months,” Dennis said Sunday during an event Rake Force held at Camp Singing Wind in Toledo to showcase its new equipment and how it’s used to help support Rake Force’s mission. 

The business and its mission have also gained positive attention on the political scale, with U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Washougal, mentioning Rake Force in Congress and the state hiring Rake Force to build raised beds at the governor’s mansion in Olympia. 

That political attention stems from ongoing interest in supporting veterans and a renewed nationwide interest in preventing catastrophic wildfire, Dennis and Dailey explained. 

“If we do just a little bit of forest management, we prevent catastrophic fires and support the energy industry,” Dailey said. “It’s good for the planet, but it’s also good for the people doing the work, and it’s needed.” 

As a social purpose corporation, Rake Force operates similarly to a nonprofit in that it’s “mission first, profit second,” but it is still classified as a for-profit business and takes contracted jobs doing forest restoration work and other conservation projects such as landslide remediation.

For more information on Rake Force and its upcoming work, visit https://www.rakeforce.us/ or https://www.facebook.com/USRakeForce.  

To read The Chronicle’s previous feature on Rake Force, visit https://tinyurl.com/4eup796b.