Rachel Jouppi, a Webster resident, currently holds the title of International Mrs. Minnesota, and she is using her position to bring awareness to a cause near and dear to her heart.
Long before she became International Mrs. Minnesota this past fall, Jouppi was an advocate for animal rescue and welfare. She owns and maintains an animal rescue farm, and recently earned her pilot’s license in order to work with an organization called Pilots N Paws, which transports rescue animals to the people who have adopted them.
Now, with a little prestige – and a gigantic crown – behind her name, Jouppi hopes to encourage more people to start donating pet food to their local food shelves.
The plight of pets with families who need assistance achieving food stability is one that makes complete sense, but is not a common idea. Jouppi said one in four families who visit a food shelf in Minnesota will also have a pet that needs to be fed. However, there is no formal mechanism that provides pet food to those food shelves.
“These major distributors like Second Harvest Heartland and Channel One that bring the food into the local food shelves, don’t do pet food. And so the local food shelves are really dependent on the local donations to fill that need. And so many people will drop off the macaroni and cheese and the canned goods and all those things, but you forget about your furry friends. And one in four families that visit the food shelf have pets at home that need to be fed too.”
To that end, Jouppi has organized a food drive for pets. Working with Fleet Farm and Tractor Supply, she has arranged for donation bins to be prominently set up in those stores. The idea being that people can buy pet food right there while doing their own shopping, and simply place it in the bin. The local food shelf will then come to pick the pet food up on a regular basis.
As a farmer and a pilot, she said she spends quite a bit of time in at least one of those stores, and the people who manage and work there have been extremely helpful.
“I live at Tractor Supply in Dundas. I had been talking to them about how I really wanted to do this, and they were so gracious. They were the very first retailer to step up and say, ‘How can we partner with you?’ John and Randy have been amazing over there. They got me connected to the right people. From there, Graphic Mailbox here in town has been part of this journey, too. They helped create decals for the front of all these donation boxes that are all around the state now.”
She said the drive will expand after the first of the year as selected Wal-Mart stores will begin collecting pet food as well.
Meanwhile, Jouppi is preparing for the International Mrs. USA pageant. She said she will leave for Orlando, Florida next week to compete in the pageant on January 4th.
Rich Larson is the owner and GM of KYMN Radio. Reach him at rich@kymnradio.net
