PEO Chapter of Fairfield hopes to raise thousands from RAGBRAI food booth

FAIRFIELD – One thousand items.

That’s about how many individually packaged pie pieces, bars and cookies PEO Chapter MB of Fairfield prepared for their food booth during RAGBRAI’s stop here on Friday, July 26. The massive undertaking was accomplished by the club’s members and friends baking at home, hoping to raise money for women to pursue education.

“We had 60 different options, and now we’re down to apple pie,” said PEO MB member Jody Seeley, who helped organize the food booth.

PEO stands for Philanthropic Educational Organization. The president of the state organization is a member of the local MB Fairfield chapter, Lisa Reindl. She said the club’s fundraisers go toward grants, loans, scholarships and awards to women for their education.

Reindl said the group also fundraisers for an Iowa project fund that provides grants to men, women and children in need.

Reindl, who lives on a farm south of Lockridge, said the group was founded in 1869 in Mt. Pleasant on the campus of Iowa Wesleyan.

“We have about 200,000 women in the United States and Canada, and 13,000 in Iowa,” Reindl said about the group’s membership.

Reindl said that, if the group sold all its baked goods, it figured to generate about $3,500 or perhaps upwards of $4,000 from its RAGBRAI booth alone. She said that the club is always looking for new members who share the group’s passion for education.

“We are an aging organization, and it’s hard to get people who want to do the legwork,” she said. “We had an ambitious cheerleader here in Jody Seeley who got us going.”

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Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com