PHOTO OF THE DAY: HELPING HANDS
Freeman Academy students (from left) Simon Ortman, Emmit Ortman, Adaline Graber and Elise Waltner work on an assembly line helping wash, label and package cans of turkey for distribution both locally and across the world. It was part of the scene inside the service area at C&B Operations in Freeman Monday morning as the Mennonite Central Committee’s portable meat canner made its return to the community. The canner and its traveling crew of four will be in town through Tuesday canning 12,000 lbs. of hind-quarter turkey. Of that, 10% will remain in the community for local distribution with the rest going to MCC headquarters in Kansas for global distribution. The canner season began in October, will continue through the second week of April and include stops in Ohio, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Virginia and New York.
During the 2022-23 meat canning season, 383,040 cans of meat were distributed in the United States and Puerto Rico, as well as Cuba, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Haiti, Malawi, South Sudan, Ukraine and Zambia.
The local effort is coordinated by several key organizers and a volunteer force estimated at around 150 over the course of two days.
