So I stopped in at the Mormon cannery the other day. Actually, if you want to be technical, its the Bishop’s Storehouse or Missoula Home Storage Center. What it actually is is a solid example of a group of Like Minded Individuals working together for a common benefit. Say what you will about the Mormons, they take care of their own and are not screwing around about it. Their logistics are amazing.
I hadn’t been up there in several years since they stopped the DIY dry-canning opportunities. Nowadays you can go up there, but instead of canning the stuff on your own you buy it already canned. It’s certainly more convenient, but I really liked the hanging out and interacting with other (somewhat) like-minded folks.
Anyway, I went up there not because I needed anything but because a friend of mine wanted to go and he’d never been there before. He wound up with a few hundred dollars of assorted goodies and all parties concerned were glad to help. The official line, as I understand it, is that the church offers the services and products of their food storage facility because they want to help their fellow man. Good on them. I’ve been told by people with a more pragmatic bent that the more accurate reason is because if they make the food storage available to their neighbors it lowers the odds of the neighbors forming an angry mob and coming to take their food storage.. I suspect there is an equal element of truth to both statements.
If you’ve never been to one of these places, it is an outstanding source to get some staple goods at unbeatable prices to round out your home storage. The place is almost exactly like Costco but smaller and with about 200% more Jesus. In all my trips there I never once had anyone put a religious spin into things except for starting the visit off with a quick prayer. No one tries to convert you, engage you in religious conversation, or anything like that. We all know why we’re there and we get it done.
What they offer are very basic foodstuffs. Wheat, onions, carrots, sugar, pasta, dried apples, oats, etc. These are things that you could survive on by themselves if you absolutely had no choice, but they’re much better used in conjunction with other storage foodstuffs.
Anyway, it was a nice visit. I always feel a sense of belonging around the poeple there when I go…not because of some religious compatriotism but rather because I’m around other people who don’t think stuffing your basement full of food, ammo, and toiilet paper is a weird idea.
“….solid example of a group of Like Minded Individuals working together for a common benefit…”
Organized relijun! WHAHHH!!!!!! Rasis!!! Nah-tsi-ists!!!!!
This is a great idea. I would like to visit the place myself.
The LDS are a pretty amazing group of people. I haven’t come close to meeting all of them, but all those who I have known have been honest, friendly, hard working, conservative, gun-owning, loyal people. Exactly the type that you would feel very blessed to be surrounded by when TSHTF, or any other time of need.
They’re good people to know, and allies to have. Making a new friend or two may be the most valuable thing you could take away from that canery.
People with more experience in this sort of thing tell me that they are, indeed, quite pleasant people and very much on the same page politically as us. But I also have been told that their loyalties are to their own first… I’ve had friends who live in Utah tell me that if you aren’t part of their tribe you may get some “second-class citizen” action in terms of hiring, promotions, etc, etc. But I’m okay with that. I do the same thing if I had to choose between, say, a guy with a pickup truck with NRA and Trump stickers versus a guy driving a Prius with a Bernie Sanders bumper decal.
I think everyone watches out for their own, to a certain extent. I don’t hold that against anyone. I think the freedom of association is a good thing. I’ve only ever had positive interactions with the LDS, however, even though I’ve never been one and really have no intention to join.
Over the weekend I read ‘How to Be Invisible: A Step-By-Step Guide to Protecting Your Assets, Your Identity, and Your Life’ by J. J. Luna (2nd or 3rd Edition – on idea which) and one thing he says is a lot of Banks and big business only hire LDS or Jehovah’s Witnesses as cleaners etc. as they are hard working, fine about odd hours, never sell you out or steal from you.
There is some good additional stuff on the linked website. All downloadable. And one of these places is in San Antonio…I’ll have to pay a visit.
Thanks for the resources and links. That was an unexpected boon.
Surprising me not a bit, there’s a cannery just down the road.
Have to visit them the next chance I get, because canned/bagged uncracked wheat isn’t something I can pick up around here any other way, and going to the local cannery saves me a trip to Utah.
If that keeps their enterprise open longer, good on them.
Paying cash for commodities means you don’t have to listen to the sermonette anyways, and they truly are decent folks otherwise, in every civic sense.
I volunteered with their welfare program for a number of years until family circumstances prevented it. I can honestly say that I ALWAYS came away feeling better about myself and the world when I left than I felt when I arrived.
Like most groups, theres some casual preparedness LDS and some Hardcore survivalists. And I am proud to call all of them that I met Friends. Wonderful people.
There was one amazing lady there who severely humbled me. Wheelchair bound with more medical disabilities that I ever learned who went to EVERY disaster in the southeast to help. Volunteered at the food center for years and years while i was there.
What most don’t know is that the LDS stations disaster relief trucks already loaded at the perimeter of any impending disaster and often beats everyone else (red cross, Baptists, fema, and sometimes military) there. Their organization is Amazing. If I am ever in a disaster, I want the Mormons running the relief.
(I’m not religious if that matters)
oh, and pay cash. obvious reasons + its better for buyer and seller.
Those guys have stupendous logistics. And the own the whole ladder from top to bottom – they grow the food on their farms, process it at their own facilities, transport it on their own trucking line, and distribute it through their own network. Fully integrated top to bottom. Very impressive.
FWIW, their latest focus has been on comms. All the kids and moms are starting their HAM licensing training. If you find used gear in short supply that may be why. I tell you – they will be ready for the most part. Sadly, as with many groups, there are plenty of members assuming they will just stroll into the church when the SHTF and be fed. They are gently reminded that such will not be the case for everyone. In short, if they know you could have prepared and chose not to you get in the back of the line.
I think I posted about it, but a while back the local LDS started encouraging each family to get into amateur radio and, I think, they made some bulk purchases towards that end. The cannery I goto has a big radio aerial out there, a nice looking rig on the desk, and, more interestingly, a map of the US with various geographic areas broken down into particular radio regions. Very forward thinking stuff.