Community effort turns junior fair sale into food for those in need
ZANESVILLE, OH- The Muskingum County Hunger Network received a major boost today thanks to donations from the county fair.
47 hogs and 1 steer purchased at the Muskingum County Junior Fair Sale were donated by local businesses and processed. The JW and MH Straker Charitable Foundation covered the processing costs, turning those donations into more than 160 boxes of meat.
“It’s really our mission to improve the quality of life for people in Muskingum County, so we like to address a variety of causes and events, and this is feeding people, it’s just very important and that’s why we’re happy to help,” said President and Executive Director at JW and MH Straker Charitable Foundation, Susan Holdren.
The meat was distributed this morning in the parking lot of Central Presbyterian Church to 11 food pantries and three hot meal programs. Last year, the network’s pantries and programs served more than 761,000 meals to the community.
“For the last several years the junior fair board has participated in a program called Stock the Trailer, we’ve collected non-perishable food items that have gone to Christ’s Table. Farm Credit supports that program and this year they added this where we could have animals purchased at the junior fair sale, get those processed, and see that impact in donation to the community but also add that to our Stock the Trailer campaign,” said Muskingum County 4-H Educator, Jamie McConnell.
Organizers said this effort shows just how much the community is working together to fight hunger.
