Community leaders will spend Valentine’s Day not with their significant other, but with a significant udder.
Fouts Farm is hosting its first “Kiss the Calf” fundraiser. If $5,000 is raised for Seven Valleys Health Coalition, six community leaders will kiss a calf.
The calf-kissers:
•Jackie Leaf, executive director of Seven Valleys Health Coalition.
•Bob Haight, president and CEO of the Cortland Area Chamber of Commerce.
•Rob Reyngoudt, school safety personnel at Dryden Central School District.
•Doug Pasquerella, principal of Homer Elementary School.
•Mark Helms, Cortland County sheriff.
•Assembly Member Anna Kelles (D-Freeville).
Julia Fouts, a fourth-generation farmer at Fouts Farm, said they chose Seven Valleys Health Coalition to keep the funds local.
“We could have chosen the food bank or the Red Cross, but that money could have gone everywhere,” Fouts said. “We like Seven Valleys’ mission of enhancing the county’s overall well-being.”
The calf-kissing will be livestreamed at 11 a.m. Feb. 14 on the Seven Valleys Health Coalition Facebook page.
Anna Wells, assistant director of Seven Valleys Health Coalition, said the $5,000 would help expand the agency’s food rescue program.
“A big gap that is a little bit unseen in Cortland County is access to affordable and healthy foods,” Wells said. “We work with local producers, farms, restaurants and grocery stores, and accept food that is otherwise going to be thrown out but is still edible, and distribute it to all the shelters and food pantries in the county.”
Cortland County has more than 46,300 residents – nearly 13% are food insecure, reports the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, or 6,000 people. That’s 30% higher than the rest of the state, Hunger Solution New York reports. And of that, nearly one child in seven is food insecure.
“Everyone should have the right to food,” Fouts said. “It’s kind of annoying that we have to raise money for it. It’s for a great cause, and it’s keeping the money right in the county.”
