Quality experiences, education

DURAND, Wis. — Every June, the Pepin County Dairy Promotion committee puts on its June Dairy Breakfast. This summer will be the 37th consecutive year of the event. In 2020, the committee adapted with a drive-through breakfast. Since then, the committee has continued to gain steam and is an integral part of the Pepin County community with an evolved approach.

The committee consists of Wendy Brantner, Tom Brenner, Mara Brunner, Matthew and Nicole Costello, Kyle Danzinger, Bernadette Growchowski, Jenny Jereczek, Jon Koller, Randy and Carma Koller, Marissa and Zach Olson, Greg Pittman, and Celsey and Noah Weiss. The group represents dairies ranging from 40 cows to 2,100 and also includes members who are not actively involved in agriculture outside of their service on the board.

This group of farmers, veterinarians, bankers, feed mill store owners, electricians and even a high school senior, provides a unique perspective on dairy promotion. The committee uses those unique perspectives to continue to evolve their ideas for promoting dairy.

“Collectively, we decided to help push agriculture,” Matthew Costello said. “Specifically, we wanted to do more than just the dairy breakfast. We have a lot of youth on our board, and I think that serves as a real strength for our organization.”

Even in the fourth-least populous county in the state, the disconnect between society and agriculture is evident he said. To help reconnect the two, the Pepin County Dairy Promotion committee has continued to find ways to help their community and provide additional education.

“We want to be as involved in the community as possible,” Danzinger said. “Doing more events and doing things year-round, that keeps everyone more engaged.”

The year-long approach has kept the board members active, participating in approximately 25 events each year. The goal is to provide consumers with quality dairy products and further agriculture and dairy education.

The group has put an added focus on finding ways to contribute to more community events, instead of the traditional farmer-centric events. Along with finding new events to participate in, they have also added educational information to create a more engaging dairy experience.

“We tailor our efforts to who we’re working with,” Matthew Costello said. “If it’s a few gallons of milk for the church group, we’ll put some educational flyers with it. If it’s for a youth group or a younger demographic, we’ll add word searches or a fun questionnaire about dairy, just adding something to the experience. We want to help the younger audience understand what dairy is, and what dairy does.”

In addition to the dairy breakfast, the events included in the year-round approach include participating in Holidazzle, and other local parades, handing out cheese sticks in lieu of candy, donating milk to the hot chocolate stand, and donating Eau Galle Cheese company cheese to the two schools in the county for National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day.

“It’s important to us that we’re providing a quality product for people in our community,” said Randy Koller, current chairperson of the committee. “That can change the perspective of what could be a potentially bad experience into a good one because of the product.”

Providing quality experiences with quality products, as well as adapting their approach to the traditional dairy breakfast has been a focus of the group.

“We added more kids’ activities to our dairy breakfast to help keep their attention and keep people on the farm longer,” Celsey Weiss said. “We want to connect with the younger generation to make it a fun event for the kids.”

A tool the board uses to educate visitors on agriculture is the dairy breakfast scavenger hunt.

“Historically, there has always been a farm tour during the breakfasts,” Matthew Costello said. “But that’s almost become a liability issue now. We adapted by providing multiple locations around the farm where people can walk to and there’s an educational piece. We’ll have the farm that hosts the event bring in their nutritionist, veterinarian, even manure management, to teach people about their roles. Attendees get a punch card and a prize if they hit all the stations.”

Jon Koller agreed on the importance of the scavenger hunt.

“I help pick people up from the parking lot and bring them in,” Koller said. “If they’re from out of town, I always try to pick them up when they are ready to leave. I’ve talked with people who had those conversations with nutritionists and vets, and when they come back, they’ll talk about all that they learned from it.”

The Pepin County Dairy breakfast will be held at Brunner’s Hillside Dairy June 21.

“We can’t thank our community partners enough,” Randy Koller said. “We have a great relationship with our local businesses, and we couldn’t do all the events we do if it weren’t for them. We’re very fortunate to have such generous people within our community that help us put together these events and be as active as we want to be.”