Donation to food bank will feed 900 families
Galloping Grace Youth Ranch gave Roadrunner Food Bank 889lbs of pork
Nearly 900 families will eat hearty pork-based meals over the holidays thanks to a recent donation by a Rio Rancho nonprofit dedicated to teaching children about sustainable agriculture.
The Galloping Grace Youth Ranch delivered 889 pounds of ground pork packed in onepound packages to the Roadrunner Food Bank Tuesday afternoon.
The donation was another exhibit of the symbiotic relationship between the ranch and the food bank. The food bank, along with local schools and grocery stores, donate food that is no longer fit for human consumption to the ranch, which uses it to feed livestock, like the 17 pigs butchered to provide Tuesday’s donation.
“We use food waste for food production,” Galloping Grace CEO and Founder Max Wade said. “And (kids) are engaged in that process of learning how to recycle what would normally go to a landfill.”
The ranch has been a great resource for Roadrunner, too, which sent 400,000 pounds of food waste to the ranch this year, Chief Operating Officer Teresa Johansen said. Before implementing a series of plans to recycle food waste, the bank was spending around $100,000 to dispose of it.
She said the ranch offers a place for that waste to go to good use, but it also teaches the next generation about why food is valuable and about all of the work that goes into its production.
“Seventeen animals had to die to create this,” she said, adding that, with that knowledge, hopefully kids will be more hesitant to waste food.
“Having people have an understanding of where their food comes from is so important,” she said.
That’s exactly what Wade wants kids who participate in the ranch’s activities to take away: an understanding of agriculture and a love for community, both of which were on full display Tuesday. He said that, around the holidays, some families, overextended after Christmas shopping, may need extra help putting food on the table.
“I think because it’s the holidays, people who are already hurting a little bit for money are strapped even more,” he said. “We can help supply some extra food that Roadrunner can distribute out to help some of these families.”
He said the ranch, founded in 2006, has donated to the food bank before and wants to continually expand its donations.
“It’s just something that we hope to increase over time,” Wade said. “We hope it can just grow every year from here.”
And any contribution the ranch can provide, the food bank will happily accept, communications coordinator Matt Young said. He said the bank is almost always in need of protein sources to distribute, which tend to be pricey to purchase. He estimated that the pork would be cleared out within the week.