Youth group raises funds for camp by selling roasts
<p>Hallie McLeod, D.J. Sotomayor, Deidre Leslie, Julia Saunders, Hannah McLeod and Courtney George helped work the 1,000 gallon grill.</p>
Cooking 80 pork roasts at a time inside a grill that used to be a 1,000 gallon propane tank is one way to raise funds for camp.
Mike and Heather Massey stayed up 24-hours and worked with shifts of kids and volunteers to prepare 260 roasts to raise funds for 30 kids to attend the Young Life summer camp in Oregon.
On May 12, they are doing it again with a goal of 100.
“Most everyone enjoys the pork, but it’s not something you get in Montana, it’s a southern tradition,” Mike said. “There are a lot of people in Bigfork from the south and they know what it’s supposed to taste like and the native Montanans developed a taste for it too.”
Young Life is a youth group for high school students, and Wyld Life is for middle schoolers. For the last seven years each group has met at Bethany Lutheran Church’s Ark building on the second and fourth week of each month, Wyld Life on Tuesdays and Young Life on Wednesdays.
The group has about 40 kids and 30 are attending camp this year. Each summer the group does a fundraiser to lower or even eliminate the cost of attending, but this year’s fundraiser was different thanks to the Masseys.
The Masseys moved to Bigfork from southern Georgia in 2009 and started serving their special recipe of barbeque pork at Bigfork High School football games’ tailgate parties. They use their own special marinade and seasoning to give it a completely unique flavor.
The popularity of their roasts grew over time and they were making 15 roasts for each game.
When the Massey’s 12-year-old daughter, Hannah, and the rest of the middle school and high school students from Wyld Life and Young Life needed to raise funds to attend camp, the Massey’s teamed up with Shirley Trent and Julie Fraley to put the Masseys’ pork to work for the cause.
“It was a very tiresome task, but we raised a lot of money and it was worth it,” Heather said.
Each of the roasts weighed about 8-10 pounds and sold for $35 each. The kids involved were in charge of selling for their own camp fund, and Cross Roads Church helped sell some as well. That amount was distributed evenly between the kids, but some didn’t quite make enough the first time.
“We limited the number this time, we had some kids make enough to go to camp and some didn’t,” Trent said. “It was so successful, so why not do it again? We found out there were people that wanted in on it and didn’t know about it, and some who said it was so good to let them know if we do it again.”
To get involved with Young Life and Wild Life or for more information, call Shirley Trent at 253-5051.