Young Farmer and Rancher Update
Susan Wilkins, YF&R Chair
I believe strongly in the
value of giving back to the
community you live in.
Giving back can take many
different forms – volunteering
for 4-H, planting flowers,
donating to a food drive,
reading to kids, OR cooking
pork rinds. For the past two years, I have worked
with the Marlinton Rotary Club in cooking
pork rinds to sell at festivals to raise money
for community
projects like our
Boy Scout troop
and school clubs.
Cooking pork
rinds is a hot,
stinky process.
Dried pork rinds
are cooked in a
kettle of oil and
the grease smell
does a great job
of settling on your
clothes and hair.
When you are done for the night, you do not
make any unnecessary stops on your way back
home for fear of truly offending someone with
your smell, or having all the neighborhood dogs
trying to eat you.
Personally, I think pork rinds taste disgusting.
And it does not take a rocket scientist to figure
out that something made out of pork skin and
deep fried in oil is not exactly the world’s
healthiest snack, despite being low carb.
However, pork rinds have been responsible for
changing a lot of lives for the positive in my little
community. Because of pork rinds, kids have
been able to travel to national competitions across
the country. Because of pork rinds, flowers
have been planted on Main Street. Because of
pork rinds, kids who might not have received a
8 West Virginia Farm Bureau News
Christmas gift had presents to unwrap. Because
of pork rinds, Boy Scouts have been able to travel
to our nation’s capital for the first time.
And that is pretty cool. If I can help change
lives (in ways other than raising someone’s
cholesterol), I can stand smelling like a walking
pork rind for a few days. Volunteering connects
you to your community and to the people
you are serving with and leaves you with a
deep satisfaction of knowing that you made a
difference. It is
pretty easy these
days to lament the
sad state of our
country and its
changing values.
It is easy to think
that as a society,
we are becoming
more and more
removed from one
another and more
and more attached
to our gadgets and
computers.
I have a suggestion. Volunteer for something.
You’ll change someone’s life. But ultimately
you’ll change your own.
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