Wisconsin Companies Donate 17,000 Pounds Of Cheese To Houston Flood Victims

Wisconsin cheese makers are sending more than 17,000 pounds of cheese to flood victims in Houston.

The effort started when staff from the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board saw messages on social media from Houston residents affected by Hurricane Harvey, which struck Texas earlier this week.

“We did see a couple of random comments out there about missing cheese and wanting cheese,” said Suzanne Fanning, WMMB’s vice president of marketing communications.

So organization sent out a call to the state’s cheese makers, hoping to collect around 200 pounds of cheese for the Houston Food Bank.

“It just turned into a really huge project,” Fanning said. “We now have about 17,000 pounds of cheese and a huge refrigerated truck sitting out in our parking lot because we couldn’t even house all the cheese in the warehouse.”

Fanning recognized some flood victims might not be able to refrigerate the donations at home.

“I don’t even know how many people are currently in their homes. We were just thinking about shelters and even people can come get a little bit,” Fanning said.

Twenty-six cheese companies donated a variety of cheese products, like cheese curds and muenster, as well as 300 pounds of butter. Fanning said the organization hopes the dairy products will bring some comfort to those affected by the flooding.

“In the scheme of things, it’s a very small thing to do but we just wanted to make a contribution,” Fanning said.