Visit Cenex Locations to Donate to Cause
In the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, local businesses and organizations are teaming up to lend a helping hand, Wisconsin-style. ProVision Partners Cooperative is spearheading the effort to raise funds to send 40,000 pounds of cheese to North Carolina for use in sandwiches and meals.
Provision is partnering up with Dairy Pricing Association, Auburndale FFA, and Feeding America to deliver Wisconsin cheese to Hurricane Florence relief.
Hurricane Florence was a powerful hurricane that caused severe and extensive damage in the Carolinas in September 2018, primarily as a result of freshwater flooding. Florence dropped a maximum total of 35.93 inches of rain in Elizabethtown, North Carolina, becoming the wettest tropical cyclone recorded in North Carolina, and also the eighth-wettest overall in the contiguous United States.
It became certain after landfall that there was an immediate need for relief in the affected areas. Ben Tilberg and Dawn Beihoffer from Provision Partners Cooperative began building a network of potential partners to deliver the semi-load of Wisconsin Cheese to the disaster area. Provision Partners Cooperative was formed in April of 2015 through the unification of Central Wisconsin Cooperative and Harmony Country Cooperative and is member-owned by local dairy farmers.
“We thought, let’s help others while hopefully impacting local dairy farmers in a positive way,” said Beihoffer. “We all know of the issues our local farmers are facing with historically low milk prices. We thought the best way to help dairy producers was to find a way to consume more dairy products. So in donating the cheese, we hope we see a positive impact to the dairy industry while helping those in need.”
Tom Olsen from Dairy Pricing Association will be procuring the cheese. Dairy Pricing Association is a Co-op created under the Capper-Volstead Act of 1922. DPA makes all Producers common with one another for the purpose of creating a floor price for their milk production. This is done through membership dues which are used to place an order to purchase finished dairy products from processing plants, whether producer owned or not. The dairy products are always donated for humanitarian purposes.
Feeding America (http://www.feedingamerica.org/) will be instrumental in packaging and distributing the cheese to food banks in the affected hurricane areas. The Feeding America network is the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization.
Residents are encourages to visit any of ProVision Partner’s four Cenex locations to donate to the cause. Stay tuned for a special video about the efforts.
