Dorothy Rees, 18, above, started a project in 2016 collecting chickens and turkeys at the Union County Fair. Rees has the birds processed and donated to food pantries around Union County. In her first year running the project, she collected 72 birds that provided 1,600 meals and 800 pounds of protein.
(Journal-Tribune photo by Georgia Davis)
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When the bird flu hit in 2015, Dorothy Rees wanted to help those who couldn’t find healthy birds to eat.
“Local pantries and community meals weren’t able to buy poultry-related products like broilers, which are meat chickens, or turkeys just because the price was really high,” Rees said.
Last year, Rees started a project in her 4-H club Wings & Things to collect chickens and turkeys at the end of fair, have them processed and donate ready-to-cook birds to food pantries and community meal centers in Union County.
In her first year, Rees collected 72 birds, 20 of which were turkeys. Those 72 provided 1,600 meals and 800 pounds of protein.
Rees hopes to donate more birds this year. She has set a goal of 100 market broilers and 30 turkeys for a total of 130 birds.
Members of her 4-H clubs, she is also part of Darby Clovers, have pledged some of their birds to her. So far, Rees has about 60 birds, but that number will grow by the end of fair as more people hear about her project and are willing to donate.
Rees donates for “the purpose of the Thanksgiving meal,” she said, but the donations are not reserved for that specific holiday. In addition to collecting birds, Rees is also asking for canned-food donations that go along with the Thanksgiving theme.
From the start of 4-H at the beginning of the year past the end of fair, Rees works on this project. She has to present all of the steps necessary in a project book and carry those out.
One of the challenges she faces is scheduling a time to transport all of the chickens and turkeys to the processor.
Rees travels to Bradford, Ohio, to have the birds processed. She said it is the closest processing place that is certified by the United State Department of Agriculture, a certification that is required for those who want to donate meat to a food pantry.
Rees said the processing cost is her biggest expenditure, which is about $800.
After the birds are slaughtered and made to look like the chicken and turkeys people buy at the store, Rees stores them in freezers until she can get them to the donation centers.
“Most of the time, food pantries or community meals aren’t open every single day or it’s hard to find a time that you can get there that the person can actually take it in,” Rees said.
Some of the local food pantries might not be able to take in all of the donations because it doesn’t have enough room. Rees said it can be difficult to find enough freezers to house all of the birds for a long period of time.
Rees likes delivering the meals and seeing results first-hand.
“It was rewarding to hear the results of how many people it fed,” she said.
Rees, who is 18, is aging out of 4-H. She took on the project for her club and has to pass on the responsibilities to the club. Rees is hoping to find a younger member in the group to help run the project and keep it growing.
Just in the past year, she said the donations have grown, and she is excited to see where it goes in the future.
“It’ll be cool to see the results after I’m out,” she said. “It will be interesting to know what’s come of it and how it progresses.”