The Florida Beef Council is working to promote beef to their neighbors during a recent event in Tampa. We caught up with Deanne Maples with the Florida Beef Council to learn more.
Maples said, “So last weekend the Florida Beef Council spent the day with thousands of families at WEDU Be My Neighbor Day in Tampa and I’ll tell you it really was a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Be My Neighbor is a community event. It’s centered around of course being a good neighbor with hands-on activities and opportunities for the families that come through and they usually see about five to six thousand people attend this four-hour event and I think almost all of them came by our booth. It was the first time we were there participating in person and it was a great chance for us to directly connect with consumers.”
“We had all kinds of goodies for the kids, coloring books and cow hats and croc charms and stickers and I was joined for the day by Valerie Yoder who is the current Florida Cattlemen’s Association sweetheart and she was wonderful visiting with the children. As you can imagine the little girls just loved her with her crown and her sash and she was a princess cowgirl I heard somebody say and her dad Beaver Yoder he brought a dummy roping setup so he had people lined up of all ages teaching them how to rope a steer. While the kids were having fun with Beaver and Valerie I was able to visit with parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles about cooking with beef, sharing recipes and quick meal ideas and how to budget and putting nutritious meals on the table. Events like these they’re fun they give us a great opportunity to share beef’s flavor and nutrition and most importantly the story behind beef with our consumers,” said Maples.
Audio Reporting by Dale Sandlin for Southeast AgNet.