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By Kent Larsen
LDS Group Taking Canneries To The World
POCATELLO, IDAHO -- A group of LDS Church members in Pocatello, Idaho have
found a way to use discarded Church resources to help others around the
world. Mel Farmer, director of the Church's Bishop's Storehouse in Pocatello
formed the charity World Wide Canneries, Inc., to purchase cannery equipment
from the LDS canneries being closed and provide that equipment to groups in
foreign countries.
The LDS Church recently decided to shut down 40 to 50 small canneries
throughout the U.S., focusing instead on larger, regional facilities. Farmer
learned that the equipment would be sold for scrap and thought it might be
useful elsewhere. Although the equipment was too small for used in the U.S.,
Farmer realized it could be used in foreign countries.
The LDS Church has agreed to sell the equipment to World Wide Canneries for
2% of its cost, and the charity recently set up its first cannery in
Mongolia. The $3,000 cost to ship the equipment to Mongolia was paid by
American Cooperative Development International (ACDI) and Volunteers in
Overseas Cooperative Assistance (VOCA), and Farmer traveled to Mongolia to
help a farmer's cooperative set up the equipment.
Farmer will retire in about a year, and plans to devote his time to the 20
or 30 additional canneries that the group wants to purchase and distribute
around the world.
Source:
Pocatellans bring cannery to Mongolia
MSNBC (Pocatello ID Journal) 4Dec00 D1
By Penelope Reedy
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