Most years, the summer months are a blur of 15 or 16 fairs, hundreds of kids, parents and market animals. While that might seem a little daunting, it is what we look forward to all year long! Seeing our Youth Rewards Members reap the benefits of the many months of preparation, training and love that they devote to their project animals is what we look forward to each year – it is the best part of our job!
This year, due to COVID restrictions, all of our fairs and livestock auctions have been cancelled. Our summer looks a little different than past years but we are still supporting our YR kids!
Normally, when we buy a market animal at an auction from our Youth Rewards Members, we “turn” the animal to the butcher (each auction contracts with one or more butchers that pay a floor price which is deducted from our purchase price. The butcher then takes the animal after the auction to butcher and sell it).
This year, because there are no auctions, we are purchasing the animals outright and paying processing fees and donating the meat to local food banks.
The attached pictures are of the 385lbs of ground beef we donated to the Stanwood Camano Food Bank from the steer we purchased from Karli Whetham (Stanwood FFA chapter).
