Winners of the 2010 Pork Industry Awards, announced by the Manitoba Pork Council, includes Steinbach business owner Earl Funk, owner of Earl’s Meat Market.
These awards recognize excellence in Manitoba’s pork industry and are presented annually to individuals, groups and organizations that have made significant contributions to the industry. This year’s recipients are linked by a remarkable spirit of compassion and charity.
The following two awards were presented as part of MPC’s annual general meeting in Winnipeg yesterday:
Community Builder Award
Earl Funk, owner of Earl’s Meat Market in Steinbach, received this award in recognition of outstanding contributions to the pork industry in going above and beyond to help pork producers feed southeastern Manitoba’s hungry families.
Earl Funk opened Earl’s Meat Market five years ago to provide a place for locally produced meat to be sold in the Steinbach community. Soon thereafter the need for meat products at local food banks and soup kitchens became apparent.
In 2008, Southeast Helping Hands, which operates a food bank in Steinbach, sought out donated pigs from local producers and signed on Earl as processor. In the first year, Earl’s Meat Market made 2,000 lbs of farmer sausage for Helping Hands. The demonstrated need in the Steinbach area convinced Funk to step up his contribution even further.
Since 2008 Funk has processed the hogs donated by local pork producers for distribution to Southeast Helping Hands and other local charities on a monthly basis. The pork producers of the Steinbach district who nominated Funk for this award are impressed with his commitment to the project, which requires a great deal of personal time and effort to make the donations happen.
Friend of the Industry Award
Gerry Friesen, Signature Mediation, received this award in recognition of outstanding contributions to the pork industry in providing emotional support and expertise to help farmers cope with financial and emotional stress during their darkest days.
Gerry Friesen is well known to the pork industry for his work with Manitoba Pork Est. and Manitoba Pork Marketing in the 1990s and early 2000s. Not many knew of his personal struggles, until he recently made his life an open book in order to help others.
Friesen was a pork producer and became a delegate to Manitoba Pork Est. in 1986. He served in various roles, including as chairman, until 1999. In 2000, he was appointed to the Manitoba Farm Mediation Board and discovered his real passion. Since then Friesen has helped more than 400 farm families through farm debt mediation process.
In 2007 Friesen signed on to answer calls for the Manitoba Farm and Rural Stress Line. He was winding down his own hog operation and saw the Farm Line job as an extension of his mediation work – a chance to give back to the community. As it turns out, it was just in time for one of the most challenging periods in history for this province’s pork industry.
Gerry has addressed groups of farmers on many occasions, including at the hog industry rally in Morris last June. In the fall of 2009 he answered the call to coordinate the Farm and Rural Stress Line’s “Farmer to Farmer” project, a series of public meetings dealing with men and depression. Part of this was the daunting task of telling his own story about recognizing, coping with, and seeking help for depression.
“What strikes me about these two recipients is their generosity,” says Karl Kynoch, MPC chairman. “They have given so much personal time and effort to help pork producers and so many other Manitobans.”
