It Goes Without Saying

I think it goes without saying that everyone did a wonderful job to make RAGBRAI such a success. I want to first start with the over 120 team members from Siouxland, Cherokee, Storm Lake, Perry, Waterloo and Joslin who came out and did whatever they were asked in early morning and late evening hours only to be asked to clean up, set up, cook and clean up more. It was truly an act of working together and was more fun than we had ever expected. If ever there was a way to measure the success of an event, one only needed to listen to the thousands of RAGBRAI riders we served and their support of our efforts to end childhood hunger. We gathered groupies along the route, and they have promised to come back next year.
A special thank you to the volunteers from all of the communities who also came out to help us. They told our story, introduced us to their neighbors and invited us into their communities like we were old friends.

Next, a special thanks to Jim Schmitz who let us try this crazy event, even though it continued to grow over the 4 months of planning. We appreciate the support of all of the plant/complex managers and their continued smiling when we asked for more people and resources as the days grew closer. None of our requests were turned down, and a few were able to come out and grill a little! Working with each and every one of you was a wonderful experience. We learned a few things, including how to cook omelets on the grill!

A very special thanks to the traveling gypsies; Steve and Nancy Louthan, Steve Youngblut and Sherri Austin who slept on floors, ate terrible food, slept in the house of a stranger and a camper with no electricity (all for the experience) and drove across the State of Iowa with thousands of people on bikes and moved equipment from sun up until sun down with not a single complaint. This core group held everything together, fixed equipment, problem solved, loaded and unloaded trucks and slept about 4 hours every day.

No one tells a story like the Mitchell group, and they did not disappoint us as we received excellent media coverage throughout the State of Iowa for 8 days. We were able to post photos on the blog and thousands of Iowans were able to learn more about Tyson Foods and the team members who make a difference every day. Between media releases and advisories, Share Our Strength and A2H, this team was busy every single day!

The fabulous food banks in Iowa let us tell our story and helped us deliver the message of 1 millions meals across the RAGBRAI route. Transportation and dispatch made this possible by having every truck in place and on time for 7 truckloads of protein!. A special thank you to the drivers who attended the events and helped whenever asked. A special thanks for helping us keep product fresh and ready to serve the over 20,000 people we saw everyday! Nothing moves without our friends in transportation!
To Communications who helped us design shirts, banners and signs....ads and whatever else we asked on the fly! Our banners were terrific, and the Tyson logo was displayed everywhere.
And to our newest intern, Thomas Nicholson.....whom we have recruited for next year.
And last but not least, to our leader of this event, Andrea Sherwood from Waterloo who showed leadership throughout. It started out as a little event and became the event across Iowa. When we all wanted to quit, she put us in the cooler truck to have a rest, brought us snacks, made us laugh, gave up her bed for the floor and kept up in good spirits with only one mission........feeding kids. Congrats to everyone......... Looking forward to seeing all of you next year! Thanks so much for help feeding kids in Iowa.