KAYSVILLE, Utah - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has worked to provide humanitarian service around the world and here in Utah for decades. Now they're taking their work to another level with an improved facility.
The LDS Church has been making pasta since about 1965, and demand grew too much for the center in Kearns, so the Kaysville grain mill will now also serve as a pasta-making facility.
"A mill of one sort or the other has been here in Kaysville since 1905. The church officially purchased the property here in 1924, but the facility has always consisted of grain elevators and storage of grains," said President Andrew Seelos from the Kaysville, Utah Central Stake. "That grain is milled into flour, cake mixes and other practical products like that. Pancake mix, granola is also produced from this facility."
The thirty wheat-based products made at the Kaysville mill will be distributed to 110 bishop's storehouses and 100 home storage centers across North America for both members and non-members.
"What we do here is we`re producing for people that are in need as well as those people that would want an emergency preparedness program in their home," said Don Johnson, director of production and distribution for LDS Welfare Services. "When we had the earthquake in Haiti, we provided a lot of pasta for them because pasta is probably the number one food product that people would prefer."
The mill will function with the help of missionaries and volunteers who donate nearly twenty-five thousand hours a year of service.
"At the heart of the church`s welfare program is a desire to help the poor and need and foster self-reliance, which means to allow people to help themselves, and to give people opportunities to serve," Seelos said.
Directors at the manufacturing center say teh work they do is as valuable for the people that need the final products as it is to the volunteers providing service.
