Friona Celebrates Maize Days
Pictured (l-r): John Keating, President of Cargill Meat Solutions Corporation; Dyron Howell, founder of Snack Pack 4 Kids; Star Stater, Operations Coordinator for Cargill Animal Nutrition; and Scott Pohlman, General Manager of the Friona Cargill Plant.
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During the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Cargill Plant in Friona last Saturday in the Friona City Park, the Cargill Corporation presented a $40,000 check to the Snack Pak 4 Kids organization.
Snack Pak 4 Kids (SP4K) is a weekend backpack program that began eight years ago. Dyron Howell and his wife, Kelly, started the program in their kitchen serving just 10 kids at Will Rogers Elementary School in Amarillo. They discovered that Amarillo was the largest city west of Dallas without a weekend backpack program, and yet, more than 3,200 children in the Amarillo Independent School District relied only on the meals served to them at school for their weekly food. That meant hundreds of children spent their nights and weekends hungry. On Friday, September 3, 2010, the first 10 SP4K recipients received a bag containing enough food to get them through the weekend.
Today, the program has grown to serve more than 10,000 kids in 51 school districts. Snack Paks always contain brand new, brand-name food and, thanks to generous partnerships and a steady stream of volunteers, 100% of all donations given to SP4K are used to purchase food for hungry children. The SP4K mission is: “To end weekend hunger for children by providing a backpack filled with kid-friendly snacks each Friday of the year.” Their focus is always on the kids, and they believe that is a major part of our success.
The Friona Star will publish a special section in the October 11th edition of the newspaper that will highlight the 50th Anniversary of the Cargill facility in Friona. It will contain reprinted articles from 1968 and 1993, pictures from the anniversary celebration, and best wishes from the citizens and businesses of Friona. Happy 50th Anniversary Cargill!!!
