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Jefferson County Farm Bureau’s Grocery Grab raises $1,125 for The Lord’s Cupboard
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FAIRFIELD – Jefferson County Farm Bureau’s “Grocery Grab” raised over a thousand dollars for The Lord’s Cupboard when it was held Friday, March 28 at the Fairfield Hy-Vee.
Jefferson County Farm Bureau President Jason Steele said his organization contributed $500 in cash, and the four participating teams that day contributed over $600 in groceries for a total donation of $1,125 to the food pantry. The event was a contest between local businesses who sent two representatives to shop for groceries, getting as close to $100 in value in just five minutes. Team members had to use mental math to keep track of their running total, and could buy no more than five items of one type.
The winning team that received the Golden Shopping Cart was that of Sam Choate and Nicki Rotenburger, representatives of Farm Bureau Financial Services with Alex Kessel, whose groceries came to $99. The two of them said they participated in this event last year, too, the first year Jefferson County Farm Bureau hosted it.
Jefferson County Farm Bureau handed out a couple other awards, such as Greatest Grabber and Best Decorated Cart. The Greatest Grabber Award went to Chad Reed and Terry Holcomb of Sinclair Tractor. They went way over $100, all the way to $321.76 worth of groceries. They said that was their intention all along, because they knew that the groceries were going to a good cause.
The Iowa State Bank team of Corinna Ackerman and Audry Hammes won the Best Decorated Cart Award for decorating their cart with a banner advertising their bank. Their total came to $106, and they said their bank wanted to support both Jefferson County Farm Bureau and The Lord’s Cupboard. The team of Summer Richmond and Mel Ostrander from Nutrien Ag Solutions got $108 in groceries, and they said this was their second year participating in the contest.
Steele said the shoppers filled their carts with a wide variety of food and supplies from peanuts to granola bars to shampoo. He said the event went well, and that Jefferson County Farm Bureau plans to make it an annual affair around the time of National Ag Week in March.
“We as a farm bureau board appreciate the community’s support and these businesses giving back to our community,” Steele said. “That’s what today is about, agriculture giving back to our community.”
Steele said Jefferson County Farm Bureau modeled its Grocery Grab after Henry County Farm Bureau’s Supermarket Sweep, which started one year earlier in 2023. He said this style of fundraiser, a timed shopping contest, has been “way better” than Farm Bureau’s previous fundraiser called Cram the Cab, where members brought a tractor with a loader bucket to the Hy-Vee parking lot and encouraged shoppers to drop off non-perishable goods in it. He said the Grocery Grab has gotten more businesses involved in donating.
“We stole this idea from Henry County,” Steele said. “That’s what we do if something is working elsewhere in the state, we share that idea so it works in our own community.”
Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com
