Farm Credit Services of America and Rural 1st recently announced the winners of their annual “Fight the Hunger, Stock the Trailer” contest, and Lorain County Fair won first place in Ohio.
More than 228,000 pounds of food was donated by attendees at 64 Ohio county fairs, according to Farm Credit Services and Rural 1st, and the winners were determined by the total weight of all donations at participating fairs throughout five regions in Ohio.
Lorain County Fair attendees donated a total of 23,840 pounds of food.
“I was actually in charge of the drive and organizing all the folks to come out and help, and organizing the Junior Fair Board people to help keep the food drive running,” said Holden Harker, former vice president of the Junior Fair Board.
“We had people from all over Lorain County and even other counties,” he said. “We also had some families and groups that decided they wanted to help out too, so it was our whole community.”
Harker said that the project helped him learn about management.
“Any time that you’re able to manage something like that, you learn all the management positions,” he said. “Getting everything organized, working with other people, working with their schedules, making sure everybody’s on the same page.”
Earlier this year, Farm Credit Services attended a Lorain County Junior Fair Board meeting with plans for the food drive.
“They came to one of our meetings,” said Harker. “Of course that’s when preparation starts — making sure that you’re getting all your advertisements out, making sure you get all the proper information out so that people understand this is what we’re going to be doing, and we want to get you guys more involved.”
In addition to the food drive competition, there was a competition between the 4-H groups and Future Farmers of America chapters in Lorain County, said Harker.
“Our collection started the Sunday opener of Lorain County Fair, so we had a great great group of 4-H clubs and FFA chapters,” he said. “I think the first day we brought in 8,000 pounds.”
The fair closing for a day due to flooding was not ideal, but it did not stop the food drive donations, said Harker. Companies such as Harrison Ford of Wellington and Sugar Ridge Towing of Elyria donated equipment in addition to food items.
“We had a rough time on Thursday closing the fairgrounds down, but honestly, that didn’t slow us down at all,” Harker said. “It brought everybody even closer. It showed everybody that our communities will gather to help those in need, and the food drive was just one part of it.”
At the end of the week, companies and groups of people from the previous year returned with donations, he said. Campers at the fairgrounds were also donating spare items from their own food supplies.
“We had an amazing, amazing group of people and different companies, they supported us last year and they came back and supported again with a vengeance this year,” he said. “I’d say they brought in probably 10 or so thousand pounds on their own”
Harker said the food collected was donated to two food pantries, South Amherst Food Bank and the First United Methodist Church in Wellington. The food donations benefitted more than 65 food banks statewide.
In addition to $500 awarded for participation each first-place winner was granted $5,000, according to Farm Credit Services and Rural 1st.