Mooving on the Water…

How many rBGH-free milk cartons does it take to make a boat? This may seem like a strange question, but yesterday in Minneapolis dozens of teams floated their milk carton boats out onto Lake Calhoun, while thousands of people looked on to see if they would sink or float. Joe, Bethany and I arrived at this annual event dressed in our cow suits and were quickly greeted by swarms of people. It was like a dairy lovers family reunion, with people dressed in all sorts of cow-themed outfits, free samples of organic milk and some of the most creative uses for milk cartons you’ve ever seen. Regardless to say, we were right at home.

The idea of building a boat out of milk cartons was new to me, but apparently people in Minnesota have been doing it for over 30 years. The boats were all shapes and sizes and had names like Bovine Vikings, Splattered Polka-Dotted Cow and Squid Attack. You can check out our photos to see a few examples. This year it seemed like most of the contestants had made the transition to organic milk cartons, which made our job of getting people to take action on the School Milk Campaign super easy. We collected over 200 postcards to Senator Klobuchar from supporters at the event!

Today we followed up our success at the Milk Carton Boat Races with a call-in day to Senator Klobuchar at the Seward Coop. People were really receptive and before long, we had jammed all of the phone lines at the Senator‚ DC office. These calls will set the stage for our petition delivery to Senator Klobuchar‚ office tomorrow morning. This will be the culmination of all our work here in Minnesota, and will hopefully bring Senator Klobuchar closer to becoming a champion for clarifying that schools can purchase rBGH-free and organic milk.