Hope somebody brought plenty of gravy or sour cream because downtown Oxford was invaded Saturday morning by 42,000 pounds of potatoes.
Organized by the Oxford United Methodist Men, the ‘Potato Drop? featured approximately 100 volunteers packing a semi-truck full of spuds into 15-pound sacks.
These sacks were then distributed to 14 food banks, churches and hunger agencies in Oxford, Lake Orion, Clarkston, Lapeer, Ortonville, Pontiac and the Rochester area.
It took volunteers roughly an hour and 15 minutes to pack 1,130 sacks containing a total of 16,950 pounds of potatoes.
The rest were shipped off in the 100-pound bags they came in.
Every year since 1989 through their ‘Meals for Millions? mission project, United Methodist Men’s groups from around the country participate in the Society of St. Andrew’s ‘Potato Project.?
Millions of pounds of potatoes get rejected annually by commercial markets and potato chip factories due to slight imperfections in size, shape, sugar content or blemishes.
Rather than allow these perfectly edible potatoes to end up rotting in land fills, the Potato Project gets them redirected to America’s hungry.
In 2007, the Potato Project was able to salvage and distribute more than 10.5 million pounds of potatoes and other produce to the nation’s hungry.
Volunteers who participated in Oxford’s Potato Drop came from the United Methodist Churches of Oxford, Clarkston, Howarth and Seymour Lake.
Oxford Rotarians and Lions, kids from Crossroads for Youth, Boy Scouts from Troops 366 and 108, and Cub Scouts from Pack 366 also lent their packing arms to the project.