The Chinese EV battery manufacturer Gotion High-tech — operating as Gotion Inc. in America — is doling out checks in Mecosta County to drum up support for its planned facility near Big Rapids amid efforts to ditch the taxpayer subsidized project.

“Supporting Manna Pantry is crucial because this worthy organization directly addresses food insecurity faced by many working parents in our community,” CCP Gotion vice president Chuck Thelen said as he presented $5,000 to the food pantry this week, according to the Big Rapids Daily News. “This donation will help ensure that children have access to nutritious food, fostering a healthier and more secure future for families in Mecosta and Osceola counties.”

The memo line of the check said it was for “Assistance for working parents.”

The donation followed another $5,000 check to the Mecosta Conservation District in Big Rapids several months ago to sponsor a countywide tire recycling event in August, WBRN reports.

“Gotion’s commitment to safeguarding our environment extends far beyond creating advanced battery technologies,” Thelen said. “By helping fund this important recycling event, we are supporting the safe and sustainable disposal of old tires while contributing to a cleaner, greener future in Mecosta County.”

In February, Thelen was at Women’s Information Services, known as WISE, with another $5,000 check to “help make a positive difference for this important emergency shelter” for women facing violence, he said.

The month before that, it was a $2,500 donation to the Big Rapids Department of Public Safety to help provide smoke detectors for folks in need, the Pioneer reports.

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“We are seeking out organizations that can do a lot of good for the public,” Thelen said. “I am talking with as many organizations as I can. This is what I said I would do, and that is to support this community.”

The money flows as CCP Gotion faces widespread opposition from locals and their representative in Congress to the company’s plans to develop a $2.36 billion battery component manufacturing facility supported by at least $715 million in taxpayer subsidies provided by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

The fierce public backlash to the deal prompted a recall of the Green Township board that signed a development agreement with CCP Gotion, and the township’s new officials are now working to dissolve the agreement.

In May, CCP Gotion won an injunction that forces the township to follow through on the terms of the agreement until the case is fully resolved, WXMI reports.

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CCP Gotion “has already invested over $24 million into the project by way of real estate acquisition costs and other related fees,” U.S. District Judge Jane Beckering said.

“This case is simply about a township exercising its constitutional and legislative authority to control its future,” township attorney T. Seth Koches wrote in a court filing.

As CCP Gotion awaits a federal review to move forward with its re-zoning application with the township, it’s also ramping up efforts to counter lawmakers in Washington, DC who are working to blacklist the company of direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party and slave labor in its supply chain.

“The company has hired an in-house registered lobbyist, Donald Morrissey, as it fights to establish vehicle manufacturing plants in Michigan, Illinois and California and to reap federal tax incentives for its products,” according to Politico’s E&E News. “The hire, revealed in a public filing, arrives as opposition to Gotion heats up on Capitol Hill among lawmakers fighting to block the company from federal subsidies.”

That effort is led by Michigan Republican Congressman John Moolenaar, chair of the U.S. House Select Committee on the CCP, who in June urged the Department of Homeland Security to blacklist CCP Gotion over its documented connections to “Chinese Communist Party state-sponsored slave labor and the ongoing Uyghur genocide.”

“The Select Committee has uncovered indisputable evidence that Gotion High Tech and CATL have supply chains that are deeply connected to forced labor and the ongoing genocide of Uyghurs in China. That is why the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force must immediately add Gotion High Tech and CATL to the UFLPA Entity List and block the shipments of these companies from entering the United States.

“The American people expect companies in the U.S. to avoid all involvement with the Chinese Communist Party’s campaign of genocide,” he said.

CATL is another Chinese EV battery company involved in a Ford battery plant in Marshall, Mich. that’s is also receiving hundreds of millions in taxpayer cash.