Idaho Beef Counts

In July volunteers showed up at the headquarters of the Idaho Food Bank in Meridian to attach labels to £1 packages of ground beef as part of the Beef Counts program. Bruce Kerner, a weiser rancher who sits on the Idaho Beef CouncilThe whole purpose of beef Camp is so that Idaho's ranchers, farmers, and the cattle industry can give back to their communities. A little history on it is the partnership was formed in 2010 and it consisted of the Idaho Cattle Association, the Idaho Cattlemen's Association, the Idaho Beef Council, Agri Beef, and of course, the Idaho Food Bank. Each one of these partners plays a role in soliciting donations that go into the Beef Counts program, and each year, beef will match up to $50,000 in cash or in-kind donations. So thank you. Beef. Yeah. Speaker4: It started. Speaker5: 2010. Since then, it's raised over $1.2 million for the Idaho Food Bank and goes right directly into the purchase, procurement or in-kind for beef directly into the community members hands. Speaker2: One of the sponsors, AG West Farm Credit, also presented a cheque for $10,000 to the food bank. Speaker5: With this donation from AG West as well. That's an additional 17,000 servings of three ounce beef that we get to put into our network, our partners hands and ultimately into our neighbors and needs hands. Speaker3: Well, it's known that, uh, my end product ends up doing somebody a lot of good. Uh, and that's about as rewarding as I can think of it being, you know, help those that you you can out and, uh, you know, there's nothing better than protein. Speaker5: So protein is one of the least commonly donated items across the food bank network, Feeding America network. And it's that's not any different for the Idaho Food Bank. Less than 10% of what we receive is actually a meat protein. And so for us to get a donation of meat protein and to be able to especially beef, to be able to go out to all of our pantry partners, to our neighbors. It's vitally important. It's part of a healthy diet. If food insecurity in Idaho is unfortunately trending in the wrong direction over the last couple of years, we're at 12.7% of individuals across Idaho experienced food insecurity and 16% of Idaho's children. So what we do here in this room, and what we do out in the community really makes a difference. Speaker2: So far from January to the end of June, donations have totaled more than $94,000. More than 62% of the $150,000 goal for the year.