Ranch Tour with California Beef Council

Beef CheckOff

Meeting Kori

A little over a year ago, I reached out to a lady named Kori Dover after the idea to start a 5K run fundraiser for our local Cattlewomen unit, the San Diego County CowBelles. 
Kori is a dietician that works for the California Beef Council and she had been referred to me to ask about TEAM BEEF CALIFORNIA which is a part of the Beef Check Off that helps educate others about the important role beef plays in a healthy lifestyle.

Kori Visits San Diego

After speaking with Kori and getting her introduced to our unit via Zoom, we had her come down to one of our monthly meetings in San Diego, to do a beef nutrition seminar all about the important roll beef plays in our diet within an active lifestyle.

The 5k is Happening!

This was back at the beginning of 2022. This year, the CowBelles are FINALLY hosting our very first BEEFit 5k run through one of the member's private ranches.
Runners will be running through pastures and after the run, refueled with beefy good snacks. 
This was all possible because of Kori's help and getting our group inspired to be a part of TEAM BEEF CALIFORNIA!
Kori Dover California Beef Council
Here is Kori giving our CowBelles a talk about TEAM BEEF CA & adding beef as a powerful protein for a healthy lifestyle. 

California Beef Council

As the years have passed, I have become good friends with Kori and have worked with the California Beef Council with social media and learning more about what the Check Off does for cattle producers. 
California Beef Council
This was after a social media training hosted by the California Beef Council 

The Ranch Tour

A few months ago, Kori asked me if she could bring a group of students to talk about our cattle, how beef gets to their plates and immerse the group in our day-to-day tasks on the ranch. 
 
Part of Kori's job is to immerse beef nutrition into the many food programs across the state of California. 
 Kori Dover, Alli Fender, Bryce Fender
Bryce and I were honored that she chose us to talk to this group of nutrition students. We love to talk to people about how we run our operation and everything from genetics to beef quality.  
The only downer was it was the only day of the week that it was raining.
 
Raining kind of hard actually. 
 
Kori had called me in the morning and was wondering if we should cancel the event. 
 
I told her: “We can't cancel feeding our cows, let's show them what we have to do rain or shine. We will figure it out.”
 
Long story short, it went wonderfully! We set up a canopy.. that almost flew away a few times, there were a few shivers, some of us had to swap our wet clothes..
But we made it through!
 
As we fed our finisher steers, we talked about everything under the sun regarding our feed program, genetics we use, standard procedures, our cattle health program, wildfire protection, beef carcass quality and more. 
We had grand plans to take the group over to our chute to show them it action with one of our cows, a walk to our gorgeous FULL pond, a beef cooking demo just off the shore, lunch with the cows grazing along side the group..
But the weather had other plans...
CALIFORNIA BEEF COUNCIL
Instead, we hustled across the street to do the cooking demo in the hay barn. It had a great ambience with hay, my horse in a stall, cows mooing on the other side of the barn. 
 Beef Coooking Demo with Kori Dover
Kori had pulled one of her interns to run the cooking demo. It was a Peruvian/Greek fusion stir fry. Lots of colorful vegetables and gorgeous lean meat served on a pita with kalamata olives, feta and a yogurt sauce. 
 beef stir fry
It was a really fun event. We even had our San Diego County CowBelles there to do a Beef Promotion talk with the students who came. They asked great questions and I am pretty positive they came away from this event with a better understanding of what we put into our cows every single day.

Sharing Our Story As Ranchers

As ranchers, it is absolutely necessary for us to share our story, how we operate our businesses and show the amount of care we give our animals.
People don't know what they don't know.. it is imperative for us to open up and SHOW people our lives. This is our chance to be at the level of our consumer and build that lasting trust and awareness that we are feeding the world!

Alright, one last plug here for our San Diego County CowBelles:

BEEFIT 5K SAN DIEGO COUNTY COWBELLESIf you're reading this before 4/22/23, this is the day that we are hosting our very first BEEFit 5k! 
It is on Earth Day and we are focusing on sustainability within cattle ranching and talking all things about beef as a wonderful source of protein for a healthy diet. 

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