Local effort will help can meat for World Relief
The Mountain Lake Area Relief Committee will be again hosting the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Mobile Meat Canner, this year on Thursday, November 16 and Friday, November 17, at the Elemendorf Christian Community, located southeast of Mountain Lake at 42668 600th Avenue, anytime during each day. Everyone is heartily invited to come and help can meat, which will get sent as relief aid “in the name of Christ” around the United States and the world.
Tasks needed to be completed include pasting labels on cans, packing meat into cans or cans into boxes or just to fellowship around the tables.
Volunteers are especially needed for the first morning shift each day, beginning at 7 p.m., and around 3:30 p.m. on Thursday. Meals, snacks and drinks are provided.
Every year the MCC’s Mobile Meat Canner travels across the United States and Canada, meeting volunteers who prepare cans of turkey, beef, chicken and pork to be sent around the world. Over 30,000 people a year volunteer to fill, weigh, wash and label every can.
In this area, student groups from both Mountain Lake Public and Mountain Lake Christian schools help local volunteers prepare around 6,000 cans of meat for shipment.
The finished cans are shipped to MCC partner organizations for distribution in their local, providing important nutrients when meat is hard to purchase. For example, in North Korea, where meat is scarce, MCC shares the canned meat with our partners to supplement meals for children, as well as patients with tuberculosis or hepatitis.
All told, 579,653 pounds of canned meat was shipped last year to Burundi, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea), Ukraine and the United States.
For more information, contact local coordinator Ramont Harder Schrock at (507) 427-2771 or see: canning.mcc.org.