Amish, Mennonites & Others Come Together To Can 80,000 Pounds Of Chicken For Charity

This month, the only mobile meat canner in the world is making a stop in Goshen, Indiana – an area with a large Amish and Mennonite population.

It’s there to be used in a big charity effort which sees hundreds of volunteers pitch in to can chicken meat, destined for locations around the world where meat is hard to come by.

This is a Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) operation, and one that’s been running for decades. One of the organization’s directors explains what it’s about (via Goshen News):

“MCC is an international church organization that works in 46 countries to provide relief development,” Eric Kurtz, executive director, MCC Great Lakes, said.

“Part of our work is providing meat in a lot of places where there’s not a source of protein, particularly refugee camps around the world. We operate the only mobile meat canner in the world.”

The meat canner is a remarkable, and I think we can say, truly unique thing:

The mobile meat canner is housed in part of a semi-truck trailer, which is driven around the country from October through April to support meat-canning events such as the one currently taking place in Goshen.

This year’s schedule goes as far west as Nebraska and Kansas, and as far east as New York and Virginia. It includes four separate stops in Indiana, all taking place in January.

Most stops are only two to four days, with the longest in Newton, Kansas, which is 14 days. At 11 days, Goshen is the second longest stop on the six-month tour.

80,000 Pounds of Chicken

With an 11-day stop, you’d expect them to get a lot of chicken canned. And that’s the goal, according to Elam Weaver, who is on the local MCC meat canning committee: “This year, we are hoping to do 80,000 pounds of chicken.”

The meat is funded by local fundraisers. At this stop, they raised around $130,000 to buy the chicken.

The cans are first hermetically sealed, and then pressure cookers cook the meat inside. Here’s a look at the process in a video showing operations at a stop in Virginia:

I have little doubt they’ll get there, or at least come close. As to what it takes to make this event happen, a lot goes into it:

Kurtz said there is a lot of planning that goes on behind the scenes throughout the year that make the canning event possible. The room that is used must go through a USDA inspection. The meat used is usually chicken or turkey, which is primarily based on cost efficiency.

Between 50-80 people volunteer each day, some of whom are there on multiple days. In total, over the course of two weeks, around 1,000 volunteers are needed to contribute to the event’s success. Some of the volunteers work a shorter shift, while others are there all day.

And those are not all Amish and Mennonites:

“We get a lot of people who are Amish or old order Mennonite, along with a lot of other different denominations who are wanting to put their faith in action, believing that Jesus taught us to care for people in need, and this is one way we do that.”

Where does all the meat go?

According to MCC-provided data, from April 2024 through March 2025, the primary beneficiary of the canning program was Ethiopia, which received 288,000 cans.

That was followed by Cuba, 84,480; Ukraine, 72,000; and Malawi, 59,420. Destinations in the U.S., including Puerto Rico, received 27,840 cans. In total, 611,520 cans were distributed around the world.

MCC was born out of efforts to alleviate famine in the lands of modern-day Ukraine over 100 years ago. So it seems only appropriate that they continue the same sort of work today.

An effort tailor-made to the Amish

It’s really a brilliant way to do this – take the operation around to Amish and Mennonite areas where there are populations of people ready and willing to volunteer.

The fact that they get hundreds of volunteers is a testament to people’s desire to help. It also fits with Plain Anabaptist values – a project done with others, that takes place in the local community.

The Amish volunteer in different ways – often locally – but not always. Bringing the operation to their communities ensures that all who want to can participate, including older folks or those whose obligations keep them close to home.

As Elam Weaver put it, “Many of us do not have the opportunity to physically go out into the world, and this is a way that we can be the hands and feet of Jesus.”

My little experience with meat canning

Back in 2012, I had the chance to participate in just such an operation, when the meat canner came to Lancaster County, PA.

Here’s my account of that experience from a list of “highlights” (I understood the operation to be run by CAM – Christian Aid Ministries – at the time):

Seeing the Christian Aid meatpacking operation in action. A mobile canning station in a converted tractor trailer travels across North America (13 states and 2 provinces, I was told) stopping in communities (often Plain) where volunteers contribute labor and supplies to prepare and can meat for humanitarian aid purposes.

The program has heavy Amish involvement in places like Lancaster and Holmes Counties. Yesterday operations were set up at a local Amish butcher’s.

Crews starting as early as 4 am took turns cutting, canning, labeling and packing cans of beef and turkey for donation. There were probably close to a hundred Amish in attendance while I was there; food concessions had been set up to accomodate them.

I took my turns at packing and stacking and appreciated how well run the operation seemed to be. The Amish volunteers worked with good humor, ribbing each other when someone slowed down the line.

That someone was me a couple times but it wasn’t enough to get me fired. All in all a nice example of how Amish quietly support charity outreach.

Finally, here’s a neat recruitment video I came across, seeking people to join the team that actually goes around the country with the meat canner: