Operation Christmas Meal comes to Clarion

While for most the holidays are a time for joy and family, they can also be a time of personal and financial stress. To help feed families during this busy season, the largest pork producer in Iowa recently expanded a program that should make Christmas merrier for those in need.

On Friday, December 8, volunteers with Iowa Select Farms gave away 500 frozen pork loins to Clarion area residents. The giveaway was part of the company’s Operation Christmas Meal, an effort to alleviate hunger at the holidays by providing a roast worthy of a family Christmas dinner.

This was the seventh year of Operation Christmas Meal, but the first that they took the event on the road. While thousands show up at the Fairgrounds in Des Moines for the main pork loin giveaway every year, Allyson Ladd, a marketing specialist with Select Farms, said they were happy to have a good turnout in the smaller communities, too.

“We’ve easily had 500 people at each stop,” Ladd said. “We had no idea what to expect.”

For the full story, see the December 21 edition of the Monitor.