Mid-Michigan Dining

I had to post this story.  Ellen Sponsler, a Girl Scout from Parma, is donating fifteen pigs that she raised to the Food Bank of South Central Michigan.  That’s 3,000 pounds of food.  I can’t even imagine how much money this girl could make at auction, but she’s giving all of it away.  In the process, she will earn the highest award a Girl Scout can recieve, the Gold Award.

Sponsler has participated for five years in 4-H, which offers buyers of fair animals the option of donating them to food banks. Sponsler decided to bypass the auction and send the pigs straight to charity.

“We are just thrilled that Ellen has such an understanding of the needs of her community,” Holly Cavinder, community outreach coordinator for the Food Bank of South Central Michigan, said in a statement. “This donation of pigs to the food bank will help feed the hungry in Jackson County, providing something that is lacking for many individuals who struggle with food security.”

Sponsler, whose project is called “From Farm to Freezer: Pork Production,” is donating to the food bank’s Meating the Need program that allows people and businesses to donate meat.

The organization distributed more than 716,000 pounds of food in Jackson County last year, but as food and fuel costs rise, Cavinder said, food donations are down. And meat is donated least often.

We keep hearing stories about how food banks are running low on food and here’s a 17-year old girl who’s doing something about.  What a great story!