School Fundraiser with a Difference

School Fundraiser with a Difference. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. School will soon be back in session and it won't be long before the kids start to bring home their fundraiser where they will be selling everything from wrapping paper, candy bars, donuts and soda pop. This fall a number of Idaho schools will take part in a very different kind of school fundraiser according to Kim Peterson, marketing specialist at the Idaho State Department of Agriculture. PETERSON: The Idaho Preferred Fundraiser is really a unique school fundraising program in that the school purchase healthy local products directly from the Idaho farmers and then they sell those products for a profit to raise money for various school programs. It's really a great way to support the local schools and Idaho agriculture and all the dollars are reinvested right back into the Idaho economy. So it's a great way to support both the school and the farmers and agriculture is such a big part of our state. Peterson says that there are many different kinds of products available through the program. PETERSON: We work with the Idaho Department of Education and the child nutrition programs so all the products have a healthy component to them. A lot of them have whole wheat, barley, different whole grain, flax seed. There's a lot of specialty food type products like gift packs of Idaho potato bread and soup and different things like that but then we also have fresh apples, fresh potatoes and then fresh pears that come in gift boxes. She says that the program is timed with the holidays in mind. PETERSON: We have 14 products and like I said we've got the 3 fresh products but then the other products are all kind of gift items. The fundraiser goes on in the fall and then we deliver products the first of December so everything works really well as a kind of a gift item, something that maybe you would send your relatives of state to kind of show Idaho agriculture, show something unique that is made in Idaho. Any ag producer that would like to have their products featured in the 2011 fundraiser should contact the Idaho Department of Agriculture's Idaho Preferred program. PETERSON: What they would need to do is be able to qualify for the Idaho Preferred program which is Idaho's branded program to identify and promote Idaho food and ag products and basically what that means is 20% of their ingredients if it's a specialty food type item, they must be coming from some kind of Idaho ingredient. If they were able to qualify and it seemed like something that would be a good fit we be certainly more than happy to work with them and help them get some of their products sold through this really growing, large fundraiser. This is the 6th year for the program and Peterson says that last year about 45 schools participated and sold about $35-thousand dollars in products. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.