Several producer organizations made contributions to food banks
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
As Thanksgiving approaches, several U.S. farm groups celebrated making contributions to their local communities.
In Indiana, poultry producers donated 75 tons of meat and eggs to area food banks.
Every year since 1948, the Indiana State Poultry Association (ISPA) highlights its charitable contributions on Thanksgiving week.
The donations not only showcase the generosity within the industry, but also how intertwined some ag sectors are.
“We have to thank all of our farmers for this because our livestock and poultry industries couldn’t be as vast and as successful as they are without our crop farmers,” said Paul Brennan, executive vice-president of the ISPA, the Washington Times Herald reported yesterday.
Minnesota potato farmers also made a large contribution to a community charity.
Brett Edling, his brothers Jeff and Mark, and their father Jerome, donated 36,000 pounds of potatoes to the Union Gospel Mission Twin Cities’ Men’s Campus in St. Paul, Minn.
The family gets its inspiration for helping the community from the Bible.
“At the end of the day, if you can help someone else out, why not?” Brett told the Leader Telegram Monday. “I believe it was Jesus himself who said to help your neighbor and take care of the poor.”
A trio of Illinois farm organizations also made donations to a local food bank.
The Illinois Pork Producers Association, the Illinois Corn Marketing Board and the Illinois Soybean Association Checkoff Program donated 6,400 pounds of ground pork to the Central Illinois Foodbank.
The generosity reaffirms that farmers feed the world, said Carrie Winkelmann, a producer from Tallula, Ill.
“As farmers, we want to feed our communities, including those in need,” she told WAND Friday.
Grain producers in the state are also donating proceeds from their harvests to the River Bend Food Bank through the Bushels for Hunger program.
Upon arriving at an elevator, growers are asked if they want to donate grain to fight hunger.
“As a farmer, it’s hard for me to see people in our community wonder how they are going to get their next meal, and it’s especially hard to see children and the elderly go hungry,” Jeff Kirwan, a grain producer from New Windsor, Ill., told The Dispatch-Argus Friday.