The Rural Voice, 2000-12, Page 18IN THE SPIRIT
OF THE SEASON
Both locally and provincially, Ontario's pork producers
are helping put a little comfort on the plates of the
needy by donating pork
By Keith Roulston
Jt may not be quite the vision of
the old-fashioned Christmas —
you know the one with the
suckling pig being carried to a table
burdened with Christmas bounty —
but there will be pork on some
Ontario tables this Christmas thanks
to the generosity of pork farmers
across the province.
Various programs allow farmers
to donate a hog, or just donate money
to buy pork products, to be
distributed through food banks.
Recently, for instances four Perth
County food banks including House
of Blessings in Stratford, benefitted
from the donation of hogs by four
county farmers. Julie Natywary of
Brunner co-ordinates the Donate a
14 THE RURAL VOICE
Hog program for the Perth County
Pork Producers Association. It's her
job to get other members to canvass
pork producers to see who would
donate a pig, then call the food banks
to see if they need any pork products.
She then calls the Abattoir, Walnut
Hill Farms, to arrange the killing and
cutting, then calls the producers and
the trucker (in the most recent case
Hishon Trucking) to tell them
arrangements have been made and
calls the food bank. to say when the
meat can be picked up.
The farmers donate the pig, the
trucker donates the shipping and
Walnut Hill Farms gives a reduced
cost for the processing. Perth County
Pork Producers picks up the rest of
the processing bill.
Florence Kehl, who has been
running the House of Blessings food
bank in Stratford for 17 years, says
the donation is a wonderful addition
to the food bank. "We don't often
have an opportunity to give out
meat," she says. The meat will be
limited to one package per family, or
two if it's a big family, for the once -
a -month visit allowed to the food
bank. It's necessary to limit to the
amount of meat given out to each
family to stretch it out, she says. It
will mean at least one meal with meat
before Christmas for the 400-500
adults and children who use the food
bank each month. People are shocked
when they hear the number of people
using the food bank right in their
own backyard. "It's a hidden
problem," Kehl says.
Natywary says she likes to
schedule the gifts around festive
seasons so she arranged one donation
before Christmas and hopes to plan
another for Easter.
While the Perth program involves
actually giving a pig to the needy, the
donate -a -hog program operated by
Ontario Pork has turned away from
that method to simply ask for
donations and then buy pork products
to give to food banks across the
province.
The provincial program started
out with real live hogs back during
what Paul Mistele calls "The Great
Hog Depression of '98". Mistele, a
St. Thomas -area farmer, is
responsible for the program's birth,
but it owes it's genesis to black
humour, he remembers. His trucker
was picking up his hogs and asked if
they were going to the usual packer.
Mistele joked he might as well send
them to the food bank for all he was
going to get for them.
But one thing led to another and
the idea of giving to a food bank
seemed better and better. He
mentioned it to other farmers and,
with a big rally being planned at
Queen's Park, the idea of donating
live hogs for the poor just seemed a
good one. Will Napp, then chairman
of Ontario Pork, urged him to try to
have something in place in time for
the march. In the end he organized
donation of 309 live hogs from
Lambton, Middlesex, Elgin, Oxford,
Kent and Essex. Everything was