Hundreds of volunteers for the annual MCC meat canning drive worked three days to process approximately 30,000 pounds of raw turkey, packed into some 15,789 cans to be shipped around the world for hunger relief.
Volunteers carved up 40 pound bags of turkey thighs in an around-the-clock shift Feb. 1, before settling into a 12-hour routine for the next two days, wrapping up at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 3. The three day event went to turkey for the first time since the event started in 1946, a shift from processing beef in the MCC's mobile meat canning facility.
Holmes/Tuscarawas MCC meat canning boardmember Dwight Shoup reported Feb. 5 that the three-day event went smoothly, with cooking times being the only major change from previous years.
'It was different,' Shoup said. 'The process was basically the same, it was just the timing of things was different. The beef took about 20 minutes to stir in the kettle until it was hot enough to can. The turkey took only about two or three minutes to cook (but) took a lot longer in the pressure canner.'
The result was volunteers at the mobile meat canner's kettle had a longer wait between batches. But there was always plenty to do; while six batches of canned turkey steamed away in the pressure cooker, stirrers labeled cans or helped with the meat cutting.
Just how many volunteers turned out is impossible to say, according to Shoup.
'We've been thinking about how to (measure) that, how many volunteers. We decided, several hundred,' Shoup said. 'There are a few who are scheduled. It's just people coming and going.'
Volunteers are needed for more than just dicing up meat. The mobile meat canner is the only one of its kind in the world'literally a meat canning facility mounted on a semi flatbed and driven to meat canning sites around the world. It is the mechanized aspect of the canning drives and needs people to fill the steel 31-ounce cans before they go into the canner. The meat is cooked in a large kettle and needs strong backs to stir the meat as the cooking progresses. The sealed cans then need handlers to transport to a pallet station where the cans are labeled and boxed.
The turkey is paid for by donations from Amish and Mennonite churches in Tuscarawas and Holmes counties. The stop is one of several for the mobile canner, which is on the road for several months out of the year.
The MCC Central Committee determines where the canned food will go, based on need. This world wide distribution to various cultures was part of the reason for the switch to turkey, Shoup said.
'There's a lot of countries that won't accept beef from the United States,' Shoup said. 'There's a lot of religions that don't eat beef. In fact, the MCC had a little trouble getting rid of the beef.'
