Career Center to help Students Finish Animal Projects by Organizing Livestock Meat Sale

(July 15, 2020 10:20 AM) The Jackson Area Career Center isn’t going to let a pandemic stop its efforts to help students end the 2019-2020 school year on a high note. After the cancellation of the Jackson County Fair, Career Center staff found a new way to help the Agriscience/FFA students finish their animal projects.

The Jackson Area Career Center is organizing a livestock meat sale for the community to sell off the dozens of steers, pigs and lambs the students have spent months taking care of. Since September, students enrolled in the Agriscience program have bred, birthed, fed, cared for and showed their animals as part of the curriculum. All of that work usually culminates with a livestock auction at the annual Jackson County Fair. However, that was no longer an option when the Fair was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We knew we had to do something to help our students after they worked so hard and committed so much time to raising these animals,” said Agriscience Instructor Jason Gehrke.

“This sale will allow the students to earn money for college and other future expenses, while the community will be able to purchase high-quality beef, pork and lamb at prices much lower than what they’re seeing in the grocery store right now.”

The Jackson Area Career Center has teamed up with local meat processor Jerome Country Market to process the animals that are bought by the public. Career Center staff were able to lock in a July 27-28 processing date with Jerome Country Market, which is already booking processing dates several months from now. Steers will be sold as quarters, pigs will be sold as halves or whole, and lambs will be sold as whole. Buyers will make two payments; one to the Career Center for the animal and the other to Jerome Country Market for the processing. A breakdown of approximate weight and prices, and how buyers can place an order, can be found at www.jcisd.org.

For more information on the meat sale, contact Jason Gehrke at 517-768-5107 or Jennifer Smith at 517-768-5102.