Hocking County Community Fund event returns to the Hocking County Fair
LOGAN, Ohio – The Hocking County Community Fund (HCCF) is marking its fifth year of bringing the community together to fight hunger in Hocking County – one pig at a time.
HCCF’s Fill the Freezer campaign returns to the Hocking County Fair on Sept. 19. The campaign invites buyers at the fair’s junior livestock sale to donate their hog purchases and others to donate money to cover the meat processing costs to fill the freezers of Hocking County’s food pantries.
“Fill the Freezer has become one of the highlights of our fair over the past five years,” said Bailey Venzin, HCCF committee member. “To date, this community has banded together to provide more than 12,400 pounds of much-needed protein to help our friends and neighbors. We’re incredibly grateful for the generosity of every person who has made this possible. Fill the Freezer is truly a by-the-community, for-the-community endeavor.”
The 2025 Fill the Freezer campaign saw individuals, businesses and organizations donate 28 hogs – resulting in over 3,400 pounds of sausage to feed Hocking County residents.
The campaign is held in partnership with the Hocking County Fair Board, local 4-H and FFA members, local food pantries and meat processors, and the Southeast Ohio Foodbank, which stores and distributes the donated meat to food pantries serving Hocking County.
The NiSource Charitable Foundation and Columbia Gas awarded the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio (FAO) a grant through its Columbia Promise Fund to support several Fill the Freezer campaigns across the Appalachian Ohio region. This funding is supporting the expansion of these programs to additional counties and helping existing initiatives, including HCCF’s Fill the Freezer campaign, explore innovative strategies to grow their impact. In Hocking County, support from the Columbia Promise Fund award will enable the piloting of a partnership with the Stock the Trailer program, which engages junior fair boards in collecting nonperishable food items for local food pantries.
The meat donated through Fill the Freezer helps individuals and families in Hocking County, where 17 percent of the population experiences food insecurity, as well as the food pantries striving to fill that need. The Southeast Ohio Foodbank, which serves 10 Appalachian Ohio counties including Hocking County, reports that only 12 percent of the commodities it receives and distributes to member food pantries is perishable protein like frozen meat, poultry and seafood.
HCCF is one of a growing number of FAO’s affiliate foundation partners spearheading or supporting Fill the Freezer and similar campaigns. In 2025 alone, more than 33,000 pounds of fresh, local protein were donated through these programs.