Mennonite Central Committee’s 2025-26 meat canning season has concluded. The canning crew and thousands of volunteers—including Mennonite Brethren—processed 887,943 pounds of meat into 591,962 cans to distribute via MCC partners in places where protein is hard to purchase.
Each year, MCC’s mobile meat canner travels across the U.S., where more than 30,000 volunteers help to fill, weigh, wash and label cans of meat.
The 2025-26 season began in Ohio in October and ended in Pennsylvania in May.
This year, a number of people from central Kansas U.S. Mennonite Brethren churches volunteered during the mobile canner’s Newton, Kansas, stop Oct. 28-Nov. 11.
According to a newsletter from Parkview Church, Hillsboro, Kansas, the meat canner produced more than 50,000 cans during its two weeks in Newton.
Hank Wiebe, Hillsboro (Kan.) MB Church, says he enjoys helping because it is easy to see the impact.
“None of the work is difficult, and some of the work allows the worker to sit if they want,” Wiebe says. “I like helping because it is easy to see how much food is being produced and, by extension, how many people are being helped. I’m not sure what other work would be this easy that would have this profound an effect for individuals.
“MCC knows what they are doing and has a good reputation for efficiently getting needed resources where they need to go. It feels good to be a part of a community of people helping those in need.”
According to The Canner Times, MCC shipped a majority of the 611,520 cans of meat from the 2024-25 season to Ethiopia (288,000).
For more information on meat canning, visit https://mcc.org/events/canning.
Janae Rempel Shafer is the Christian Leader associate editor and joined the CL staff in 2017. Shafer is an award-winning writer, receiving multiple awards from the Kansas Press Association and Evangelical Press Association. A Tabor graduate with a degree in communications and religious studies, she and her husband, Austin, attend Ridgepoint Church in Wichita, Kansas.
