Three Bears Alaska Supports 4-H.

• Author: Strieker, Julie

In early August, John Green, the meat buyer for Three Bears Alaska grocery chain, was in a familiar spot: the arena at a local 4-H livestock auction.

Before the Kenai Peninsula Ag Expo ended. Green purchased the grand champion beef, champion medium weight hog, reserve champion medium weight hog, and market lamb.

Within a few days, the animals had been processed and were available at the Kenai and just-opened Sterling Three Bears stores. The refrigerated stand holding the meat was draped with banners displaying the 4-H clover and a sign that told shoppers the meat had come from members of the Kenai Peninsula District 4-H at the 2022 Junior Market Livestock Auction.

Green says he started buying livestock raised by 4-H members more than twenty years ago when he worked for another local grocery chain, and he took the practice with him when he joined Three Bears seventeen years ago.

"It's just good for the community. It's good for the kids," he says. "It's just a way to give back."

His budget in the early days was about $2,500, but Three Bears now spends considerably more than that at the 4-H auctions.

On September 3, Green and other Three Bears meat buyers were ringside...