Beef to school program off to strong start

Readers of the Eagle may have recently noticed an ad in the paper seeking local ranchers who are willing to donate beef to Ekalaka Public Schools for the lunch program.

On December 20th, the first beef donation was dropped off at the school by Abbey Bruski of Beaver Creek Homegrown. Bruski started the program locally with the help of a processing company that does the same thing for several other area schools. She says she did it because she wanted the students in Ekalaka to get locally sourced beef without the school having to pay for it.

"Our students deserve to eat good meat where we know what it was fed and how it was handled from the ranch to the packaging process," she said.

Bruski says other local ranchers have signed up to donate beef later in the school year. Additionally, several individuals and businesses have also provided monetary donations to help cover the processing fees.

The beef donated on Monday was donated by Keith Ranch, Ella Voise and Sikorski and Sons made the donations that covered the processing fees, and the Eagle covered the ads for the program.

In total, five hundred sixty-seven pounds of meat was delivered to the school, quite a lot of locally raised product. Fifteen pounds was also taken to a local daycare to feed youngsters.

"This is an awesome step up our little community is making to promote local, healthy beef and support our schools," Bruski said.

"Thank you all for the generous donations so far and we look forward to watching this program grow."

Individuals, ranches and businesses interested in contributing to the program may contact Abbey Bruski at 406-975-6434 or abbeyjean2012@hotmail.com.