January 2010 Highlights « Back

We are midway through our District Meetings in Minnesota; if you haven’t yet attended one, please check out the schedule so you can make the one nearest to you. It’s a great time to ask questions about your checkoff.

Congratulations to Haubenschild Dairy Farm of Princeton, Minnesota, honored as the Innovative Dairy Farmer of the Year. The award from the International Dairy Foods Association was given to Dennis and Marsha Haubenschild for its emphasis on innovative solutions, particularly in the renewable energy sectooperate the 1,100 cow dairy farm. Haubenschild Dairy was the first farm to sell carbon credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange and is now working with the University of Minnesota to develop a prototype for hydrogen-fuel cell technology. Dennis has been very involved with the checkoff’s efforts on sustainability and has been a presenter on the subject at both Minnesota and national meetings.

Before he showed up in some significant plays in the final Vikings playoff game, linebacker Ben Leber worked with Midwest Dairy speaking to middle schoolers in Northfield during their lunch periods in December. Leber talked about the merits of the Fuel Up to Play 60 effort, good nutrition and physical activity. He met with the winners of a contest and spoke to about 350 students.

Viking Asher Allen also traveled with our message to Keewaydin School in Minenapolis to talk about eating a good breakfast including dairy. Another 350 students in grades 4 through 8 were involve with this presentation. Keewaydin has had great success with its breakfast program, enrolling nearly 100 percent of their students.

In conjunction with our Viktor Assembly program with the Vikings, there’s been a contest to have the students who attended the assemblies use the food and activity tracker in the books we provide. The students tracked their ‘energy in’ and ‘energy out’ and reported their tracking to us. Eighteen lucky students received tickets to the Bikings/Bengals game in December and got special treatment for two hours before the game.

Your registered dietitian working in Minnesota, Carolyn Hudson, joined the fluid milk processors program known as Milk PEP for an event at the Mall of America earlier this month. The Milk PEP campaign has been doing a Great Gallon Give and during the the event, they handed out gallons of milk or a coupon for three hours. Land O’Lakes, Kemps and Hastings Creamery provided the product. The event support the social media campaign where people visiting Facebook can ‘pass a gallon’ to contribute to Feeding America. You can find more information at whymilk.com.

Hope your New Year has started well!

Sherry and Brad