BELLEVILLE - Mennonite Central Committee received a $25,000 grant from the Land O'Lakes Foundation Monday morning, to help alleviate hunger. The presentation of the check was made on opening day of the Central Pennsylvania World Hunger Association's meat canning project in Belleville.
MCC's mobile canner is used for the canning project and 90 percent of the meat canned locally is distributed to areas of need worldwide through MCC. The remainder of the canned meat is retained for use by agencies such as food banks, Meals on Wheels and other emergencies in the local area.
"A lot of our Land O'Lakes producers that live in Central Pennsylvania participate in the canning every year," Land O'Lakes board director Larry Kulp said, explaining the choice of MCC. Kulp, of Martinsburg, himself donated the proceeds from the sale of a cow to the canning project.
"We are a food cooperative and Mennonite Central Committee is world-renowned as a provider of food for distressed areas" he said. "We're familiar with MCC and what they do."
Tim Friesen, canning coordinator for MCC, based in Akron, Pa., was on hand for the check presentation, along with local Land O'Lakes unit delegates Art Zug and Kent Spicher, Land O'Lakes member relations coordinator Lori Connelly and area procurement manager Brian Riley, and officials of the world hunger association and canning project.
"It's a good partnership. It's a great opportunity for a food company to assist an organization that also produces food," Friesen said, adding that the grant funds will "go for the overall meat-canning program," including shipping costs for the cans of meat and maintenance of the mobile canner.
"As a national, member-owned cooperative, Land O'Lakes is committee to helping the growing number of people struggling to put food on their tables," said Land O'Lakes Foundation Executive Director Lydia Botham, in a release. "And the ongoing work Mennonite Central Committee does to help those in need makes the organization the perfect recipient for this grant."
MCC has had a mobile canner in use since 1947. The local canning project, which has always used the MCC canner, dates from the early 1970s.
A total of 30,000 pounds of boneless turkey thighs have been purchased with local donations for this year's Central Pennsylvania World Hunger Association's canning project. The canning is taking place through Thursday in the maintenance shop at the rear of the Fairmont Foods building at 15 S. Kishacoquillas Street in Belleville.
All the labor is donated by volunteers, in a variety of jobs ranging from cubing the meat to washing and labeling cans to work on the canner. A team of MCC volunteers travels with the canner throughout the United States and Canada during its seven-month canning season.
Kulp said all applications for grants by Land O'Lakes leadership are submitted through local unit delegates and are reviewed by the foundation before recipients are chosen.
The $25,000 grant is one of six direct grants being made by the Land O'Lakes Foundation to organizations in the eastern United States as part of Land O'Lakes "Feeding Our Communities'' initiative, Kulp said.
The grants also include $25,000 to United Way of Pennsylvania Emergency Food Program, based in Harrisburg; $20,000 to the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank in Harrisburg; a total of $10,000 to the Saint Vincent De Paul Assumption Chapel in Altoona, $5,000 each for its food pantry and $5,000 for its Food for Families program; $10,000 to Project Share in Carlisle and $10,000 to the Garrett County Community Action Committee in Garrett County, Md.
The Central Pennsylvania World Hunger Association received a $5,000 Mid-Atlantic Grant from Land O'Lakes Foundation in 2009, one of such grants that are routinely made, Kulp noted.
To date, the initiative - a program dedicated to helping alleviate hunger locally, nationally and internationally - has contributed more than $400,000 in direct and matching grants from Land O'Lakes and its member owners; raised $100,000 through Operation Co-Operation with KARE-11 television in Minnesota; helped raise $190,000 as a partner in the Let's Kick Hunger Day Radiothon with the Taste of the NFL; and committed to donate a truckload of fresh food to a food bank each month in 2010 as part of the First Run program.
Land O'Lakes Inc. is a national, farmer-owned food and agricultural cooperative with annual sales of about $12 billion. The co-op does business in all 50 states and more than 50 countries, ranging from marketing dairy products to producing animal food, and providing agricultural assistance and technical training in more that 25 developing nations.
