A handful of PGA Tour players, alongside Kingmade Jerky, are helping to feed kids who might otherwise go hungry amid the global pandemic.
For kids who rely on their schools to provide free meals during the week, the coronavirus global pandemic has taken an immense toll on them and their families in quarantine.
That’s why Kingmade Jerky has partnered with Blessings in a Backpack, a national non-profit, to provide food for elementary school students across the country who might otherwise go hungry. Kingmade Jerky, which was founded by caddie Jeff King, has donated more than $100,000 of product that will be given to 5,000 children.
The Blessings programs has the support of the following 15 PGA Tour players, their spouses and affiliated organizations:
- Jason and Ellie Day (Columbus, Ohio)
- Brad and Dory Faxon (Providence, R.I.)
- Jim and Tabitha Furyk (Jacksonville, Fla.)
- Matt Wallace (Jacksonville, Fla.)
- Jim and Carolyn Herman (Palm City, Fla.)
- Charley and Stacey Hoffman (San Diego)
- Justin and Amanda Leonard (Dallas)
- Davis Love Foundation and the PGA TOUR Wives Association (St. Simons, Ga.)
- Louis and Nel-Mare Oosthuizen (Palm Beach, Fla.)
- Justin and Kate Rose (Orlando)
- Charl and Rosalind Schwartzel (Palm Beach, Fla.)
- The Zurich Classic Fore!Kids Foundation (New Orleans)
- Steve Stricker (Palm Harbor, Fla.)
- Mark and Amy Wilson (Chicago)
“When we started looking for ways that we can help families in crisis from the pandemic, this partnership with Blessings made perfect sense,” King said. “From day one, this brand has always been about the Tour players, and we are honored to support a worthy cause that means so much to them.”
Brooke Wiseman, CEO of Blessings in a Backpack, says there are 11 million food-insecure children in America. Her nonprofit has provided food in backpacks to kids who might otherwise go hungry on the weekends. During the 2018-2019 school year, Blessings in a Backpack provided 3 million hunger-free weekends for 87,000 kids in 45 states and Washington, D.C.
King created the jerky company after experimenting in his kitchen in Texas with a dehydrator to make the snack he craved during long drives from one Tour stop to another. At first, he had no idea his jerky would take off, becoming a favorite of professional golfers. In the spring of 2012, he took some jerky to an LPGA stop and sold 30 pounds at $40 a pop, just like that. When he went to the PGA Tour to carry for Luke List, the gathering spot on the driving range was wherever King was with the jerky.
“When I started, everybody was putting their two cents in on what flavors they wanted. ‘Hey, can you make me a black peppercorn one? Can you make me a hot one? Can you make this and that?’ And I was like, sure, let’s go all trippy and all, I’ll try it out,” King told USA TODAY in an interview in 2014. “I’d run home, try it out and bring it out to them, and they’d be like, ‘Dude, get me 2 pounds of that, that’s awesome.’
“I was coming home, my weeks off, just literally doing nothing but making beef jerky,” he said.
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