Community Support

Community Involvement

Manitoba Egg Farmers (MEF) believes in promoting healthy living, animal care, food safety and environmental sustainability and these core values are demonstrated through our policies and actions. We also believe it is important to give back to the communities we live and work in. Here are some of the local groups and organizations MEF has financially supported.

Supporting Communities

Pictured: Kurt Siemens (second from right) with Project Canaan’s poultry team – his students

MEF Director Helps Teach Swazi Farmers

Forty-two percent of Swaziland’s population is infected with HIV/AIDS, and one in three swazis is undernourished. The African country is home to 200,000 orphans and Manitoba Egg Farmers’ Director Kurt Siemens is committed to doing what he can to help. Kurt is a true believer in Project Canaan, which includes an orphanage for over 100 children and farms that employ more than 250 Swazis. Kurt has made several trips to Swaziland to help build a poultry farm from the ground up. “The protein in eggs makes learning easier for the children,” said Kurt. “The team took courses in poultry management,” he says, “but learning from a book and from the real world are two different things.”

Egg Farmers of Canada now works to ensure a Canadian is always on the ground at Project Canaan, teaching staff the ins and outs of egg farming.

Manitoba Egg Farmers Give Back

By giving back, we feel it helps make our communities stronger. Each year, MEF proudly supports over 200 different groups and organizations, including:

The Dream Factory
Seven Oaks Infant and Toddler Program
The SIGN Foundation
Ronald McDonald House Winnipeg
Steinbach Family Resource Centre
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Winnipeg
Make a Wish

Diabetes Canada
Brain Tumour Walk
U-Turn Parkinson’s
Manitoba Farm Women’s Conference
Various food banks and breakfast programs including Agape Table and Harvest Manitoba

Harvest Manitoba Partnership

In 2022, Harvest Manitoba (Manitoba’s food bank) saw the need for food assistance in our communities rise to new heights due to soaring food prices.

Demand for food in Winnipeg and communities around Manitoba has never been greater, and Harvest has been seeing approximately 90,000 people each month – breaking records.

With help from the Egg Farmers Give Back program at Egg Farmers of Canada, Manitoba Egg Farmers was able to donate 12,000 dozen eggs to Harvest in October of 2022. This donation from MEF broke a record for the most eggs ever donated to Harvest in one month. Members of MEF’s Board and staff were able to go to Harvest and help debulk the eggs and package them into cartons for families to take home in their monthly hamper.

Donating eggs has been a priority for MEF for the last several years. In 2022, MEF donated two pallets of eggs per month and supported Harvest in purchasing two pallets at our cost from local graders. That is more than 7,000 dozen eggs per month – 84,000 potential meals – in Manitobans’ refrigerators and feeding hungry bellies.

Join Manitoba Egg Farmers in donating to Harvest today at www.harvestmanitoba.ca.