The Purple Ribbon Meat program has been in existence since 9-13-2016 in the Exeter- Milligan and Friend schools. Purple Ribbon Meats is a program that supplies locally grown beef and now, for the first time pork, to get processed at a USDA processing plant and then delivered to the school’s cafeterias for the cooks to prepare for the lunch and breakfast programs at the school. This meat replaces the meat that is bought through the commodities.
We as livestock and grain producers in this area raise the best quality of meats and grains in the entire world. We ship our meats all over the world and they are fed the quality of grain produced in this area. Before this program, our students were getting meat from commodities that does not represent the high quality of animals we grow right here in our district.
Our schools have partnered together in this program since 2016. We have done this strictly on donations from outside of the school through businesses, farmers, and individuals in agriculture or retired from the field. We are wanting to expand and give more opportunity to other businesses or individuals who might not have understood this program or the impact it has on our district. People crave our products in other parts of the world but before this program our own students were not receiving this quality of meat at our schools with the federal lunch programs.
On December 20th, our schools will compete on the basketball court for possibly the last time as individual schools before they join next year for NSAA activities. The Purple Ribbon Meats program will be auctioning off some prime rib and brisket after the girls’ varsity game and before the boys’ varsity games in Friend this night. All the money raised from these sales will go towards funding the program. Purple Ribbon Meats is run through the FFA Booster 501-c3 and all donations are tax deductible whether you are donating a live animal or donating cash directly to the program.
All our steers come from the Haare Feedlot or Weber Feed Yard. We have animals scheduled for January that we are looking for sponsorship along with paying for the processing. This school year we will donate 8 steers and 12 hogs, amounting to a cost of $25-30,000. Everyone is invited on December 20th to come out and bid on these items or if you would rather give a donation to the program, we will be accepting them as well. If you have interest or further questions about donating to this program either money or livestock and are unable to attend this night, please get ahold of one of these representatives of this program: Paul Segner, Eric Milton, Scott Vhynalek or one of the superintendents of the schools.
Purple Ribbon Meats thanks all who have contributed to this program in the past and look forward to your continued support in the future.