By Sarah Elms
Traverse City Record-Eagle
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) - Thurl and Betty Hartman were elated when they won half a cow at the Kalkaska County Fair, but those hundreds of pounds won't end up packed away into the couple's home freezer.
"That's a lot more meat than my wife and I will eat just the two of us," Thurl Hartman told the Traverse City Record-Eagle. "We discussed it and decided that we would donate it to Father Fred."
About 280 families use the Father Fred Foundation food pantry each week, and officials try their best to keep the shelves stocked with nutritional options.
"We want high protein so there's nutritional benefits, so to be able to offer our families some meat is a big deal," said Executive Director Deb Haase.
It takes about $16,000 a week to keep the pantry filled with food, and meat doesn't come cheap.
"With donations like this, it's just incredible," Haase said. "It helps us stretch those dollars a long way."
National Coatings Inc. employees also bought and donated three hogs and a steer from the Northwestern Michigan Fair's 4-H livestock auction to the foundation's pantry. Father Fred volunteers picked up a little less than 500 pounds of processed meat on Aug. 18 and began distributing it to pantry patrons.
"So that's 500 families that are benefiting from that," Haase said. "And there's more to come. That's just the first pickup."
Father Fred isn't the only area nonprofit to benefit from livestock auctions at area fairs.
Goodwill Northern Michigan's annual Fill the Freezer campaign solicits donations from auction-winners so they can feed the more than 600 people who use the Goodwill Inn shelter each year.
Lilly Clark, Goodwill's event manager, said she hasn't yet totaled all of this year's donations but the campaign typically brings in about 30 animals each summer. Any cuts of meat that won't fit in Goodwill's freezer are divided among area food pantries.
"It was a very positive response," she said. "People like it because they can help out the Goodwill Inn, they can help out the 4-H kids, and any extra meat that we have after filling the Goodwill Inn freezer, Food Rescue will distribute."
Thurl Hartman also won a new freezer at the fair, and he's donating that to Father Fred, too. He said he's impressed by the services area nonprofits offer to families in need, and he wants to do what he can to support their efforts.
"I feel that we were blessed by it, so we took what we thought would be necessary for us and passed it along for somebody else to get blessed with it," Hartman said.
Published: Tue, Sep 01, 2015
