CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — In 2024, the Junior Fair Board of rural Ross County, Ohio, was at a crossroads. They had participated in Farm Credit Mid-America (FCMA) and Rural 1st’s “Fight the Hunger, Stock the Trailer” program for a few years, joining an effort to turn county fairs in Ohio and Indiana into powerful engines of community service.
After notching relatively modest success in previous years, the group considered walking away because the effort had become too demanding for their adult peers (they had a fair to put on, after all).
For FCMA loan officer and former 4-H and FFA member Olivia Congrove, Ross County is home. She grew up there and knows it’s a place where food insecurity is a major issue, especially in recent years, as pressures on the economy are being felt more and more by vulnerable people everywhere.
What began in 2021 as a simple challenge to junior fair boards has grown into a regional movement; Congrove believed the drive has real benefits for both the kids and the wider community, and she wasn’t ready to see Ross County quit.
For Stock the Trailer, youth-led teams devise creative campaigns and compete to fill trailers with donations before weighing, delivering and reporting their totals. Prize money flows back into the youth programs that run it. Every participating county receives $500, with regional prizes of $5,000 for first place, $3,500 for second and $1,500 for third, all directed to local junior fair and fair board programs. In five years, FCMA has awarded $436,500 to junior boards and 4-H teams.
The initiative has collected more than 1.6 million pounds of food since its inception and mobilized thousands of young people to support local food banks.
With all that in mind, Ross County decided to try it again for one more year: For 2025, why not set the bar ridiculously high?
“They were like, ‘We’re gonna get 100,000 pounds this year,’ and I was like, ‘OK, sounds a little crazy,’” Congrove said.
Fair board members got to work, considering what had worked the previous year, and they built on it, reaching out early to supporters like Sam’s Club, Rural King and Walmart and lining up sponsors who donated both money and supplies. They used local business support to buy items like bottled water, which many food banks struggle to obtain, and by January of last year, they were already gathering contributions toward their goal. They ultimately took in a record-breaking haul totaling 122,640 pounds of goods, the most donations statewide.
Immense help
Ryan Klein, Ross County’s 4-H educator and de facto junior fair coordinator, said the team made a point of asking food pantries what they actually needed, which gave their campaign direction. And the work didn’t stop when fair week rolled around. The junior fair board folded fundraising into existing events, from an outhouse race and apple pie auction to raffles and other activities on junior fair night, steadily collecting both cash and goods.
He credits a handful of teen leaders with driving much of the effort.
“I honestly can’t even imagine the hours that it took them. There were a lot of calls; they would go out and meet locally with businesses, so there was a lot of effort there,” he said. “I think that’s probably one of the main rewards for us, is to be able to build in service, at least into the junior fair experience, providing our board members but also the youth [with] an opportunity to participate in something a lot bigger than them.”
Most of the Ross County haul went to the Good Samaritan Food Pantry in Chillicothe, Ohio, with additional deliveries to church-based pantries.
On the receiving end, the numbers are staggering.
“It’s helped us out immensely, believe me,” said Mike Thompson, general manager of Good Samaritan. They took in over 100,000 pounds of water alone.
“It took us five hours to unload it and stack it. Just me and my one helper unloading it and stacking it, and they had six gooseneck trailers and a 30-foot cattle trailer full,” he said.
Thompson said the fair board youth also delivered about 300 pounds of canned food, too.
The impact doesn’t stop at Good Samaritan’s warehouse doors. Thompson said the water has already been shared with the local police and fire departments, three nearby high schools and several churches, stretching one massive donation into support for first responders, students and the faith communities that host many outreach efforts.
It will go a long way; the volume of need at his pantry keeps climbing. Last year saw 990 new families join the roster; the year before that, there was another thousand. Thompson calls the Ross County Junior Fair Board’s work indispensable.
“I am greatly proud of our junior fair board here, and their stepping up to the plate and knowing there is a need, not only for water, but for canned food, stuff like that too,” he said. “And having those kids take the time to do this and to donate it to us, it means the world to us.”
“I love to be involved”
While Ross County grabbed headlines in 2025, the broader Stock the Trailer program is a regular hall of heroes.
It launched with just a handful of pilot counties and expanded statewide in 2022, when Lorain County first joined. Since then, Lorain has been a powerhouse: it claimed the state title three years in a row, from 2022 through 2024, and finished as runner-up last year behind Ross County. Over that span, Lorain County’s collections climbed from 13,480 pounds of food in 2022 to 23,840 pounds in 2023 and an impressive 32,580 pounds in 2024. All told, between participation payments and regional prize money, the county has brought in about $22,000 for its youth and fair programs through the competition over the past four years.
FCMA Financial Officers Chandra French and colleague Seth Wasilweski say the key in Lorain County has been deep community buy-in and friendly competition among youth clubs.
“I think the most impressive thing about Stock the Trailer in Lorain County is the community support. I think it’s unmatched,” French said. “The community is highly engaged and invested in the initiative… Community members actively leverage relationships with local businesses to raise additional funds, but also to help secure the food donations locally, and a lot of times at discounted prices, so they’re working with the local grocery stores to see the biggest bang for your buck.”
On top of that, there’s a friendly rivalry among Lorain County’s 4-H clubs and FFA chapters, French explained. The Junior Fair Board oversees the contest, challenging each club and chapter to see who can collect the most food by weight. Top performers earn prizes, adding another layer of incentive that helps drive even more donations to the Stock the Trailer effort.
French, who calls herself “a very service-oriented person,” said the most movifng part is watching young people learn what their efforts can do.
“I love to be involved, to see youth involved and to learn the acts of service and kindness and the impact that it can have on our community,” she said. “I think that’s the heartwarming part for me. That’s the feel-good moment, is seeing that involvement in our youth.”
As the numbers scale up, Wasilweski said the program has become a tangible expression of FCMA’s mission.
“In a way, it’s validated that ‘Put your money where your mouth is’ (ethos) and kind of backs that up with action,” he said.
Back in Ross County, Congrove says last year’s victory hasn’t dulled the board’s sense of responsibility.
“I do know that some of the leadership has changed a little bit already. Kids have graduated, but I think they were also going to focus this year on what the food pantries requested from them,” she said. “Just because they won, they’re not giving up, but they’re going to try to focus on more requests of, you know, not things that weigh the most. They’re going to try to see what the food pantry needs the most and try to look for those items for donations.”
She said her pride in the youth for their service is strong.
“Not only were they working six months in advance, but they were actively working during the fair, which they’re already so busy at. So I’m just so proud of them, and it hits close to home knowing that I’m a Ross County local, and seeing work in our community is just amazing.”
For his part, Klein, the 4-H educator, hopes other junior fair boards see Ross County’s experience as a model to emulate, not just an outlier.
“We encourage every county to take part in this opportunity, put (their) best foot forward, and help close that food insecurity gap,” he said.
