Chouteau County received a donation of more than 1,700 pounds of ground pork, which will directly impact hundreds of families throughout the community.
The nearby Hutterite colony Twin Hills donated pigs to The Producer Partnership (link), a nonprofit based on Livingston, Montana.
“Twin Hills Colony donated a bunch of pigs, and we made that into breakfast sausage and ground pork, and they're going to be giving it out through the different food banks around the area,” explained Matt Pierson, president and founder.
“To be able to have this kind of a large donation, we are totally grateful for this. It will definitely reach a lot of families,” said Denise Naeseth, director of the Chouteau County Food Bank in Fort Benton.
The 1,733 pounds of ground pork donated on Thursday will provide more than 6,000 meals to those in need.
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“We’re starting to see more and more food insecurity issues across the whole country, but especially in Montana, where it's almost a three-to-one cow to people ratio, we shouldn't really be seeing any of this. This is just a good program that we've created to try to help bridge the gap between a producer and those in need,” Pierson explained.
Since starting in 2020, The Producer Partnership has donated almost 27,000 pounds of Montana-raised protein to charities and nonprofits across the state.
And now, they have a set partnership with the Twin Hills Colony to supply future donations to the Chouteau County Food Bank.
“This is one of our largest donations that we've seen; it definitely fills my heart,” Naeseth said.
Montana livestock producers can donate their animals to The Producer Partnership to be processed free of charge and then donated to schools, food banks, or other nonprofit organizations, keeping the meat in Montana.
“We try to let producers have, you know, if they want to have a say in where it goes and where they want to try to help out, we encourage that, you know, creating that sense of community is pretty important to us,” Pierson said.
The Producer Partnership, as well as food banks, will continue their fight to end hunger in Montana.
