First-ever Tater Tot Festival celebrates history of Idaho snack food while raising funds for child abuse prevention

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Published astatine 4:40 pm, August 17, 2024 | Updated astatine 4:41 pm, August 17, 2024

IDAHO FALLS — Vendors and organization members gathered astatine nan first-ever Greater Tater Tot Festival astatine Sandy Downs successful Idaho Falls Saturday to raise consciousness of and money toward ending kid abuse.

The show besides celebrated nan history of nan tater tot.

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Leslie Grigg of Ammon and his cousin, Steve Grigg, precocious formed a nonprofit called Protect Your Tots, which raises costs for kid maltreatment prevention. Leslie is simply a personnel of The Exchange Club of Idaho Falls, which devotes its efforts to galore organization work projects, including kid maltreatment prevention.

“Protect Your Tots” was besides nan taxable of nan event. All nan proceeds went towards a caller Family Justice Center, a cardinal location for nan Domestic Abuse and Sexual Assault Center to process cases.

Steve says he and Leslie are proud to opportunity their fathers, F. Nephi and Golden Grigg, founded Ore-Ida, nan institution that invented nan tater tot.

F. Nephi and Golden Grigg were victims of kid abuse, according to Steve, and nan family is utilizing their level to guidelines up for young victims everywhere.

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“My begetter and my uncle came from a family of 13. They were each very close. I cognize it was a different time, and they were connected their ain a lot,” opportunity Steve. “These 2 guys ne'er went to school.”

Steve says his dream is to person an arena for illustration this each year, and to 1 time make a ample aid to a section infirmary to sponsor a room for victims to beryllium successful a comfy, safe situation wherever they consciousness comfortable reporting instances of abuse.

“When you’re being interviewed by nan police, and you’re a child, you don’t want that to return spot successful a cold, constabulary interrogation room. They’d for illustration an situation that’s much for illustration a surviving room,” says Steve. “Somewhere location would beryllium toys, and would make them comfortable, wherever they tin process what happened and get done it.”

Champs Heart, Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office, Idaho Falls Police and Idaho Steel were immoderate of nan organizations successful attendance.

The Idaho Steel booth showed really tater tots are made astatine a complaint of 12,000 pounds an hour.

As portion of nan event, attendees were fixed a complimentary handbasket of tater tots arsenic they learned really to protect their tots astatine location from net crimes, bullying, and galore different kinds of kid abuse.

CJ Scarlet, a Kids Safety Crusader and writer of “Heroic Parenting” and “Raising Bad*** Kids,” was invited to speak astatine nan arena astir giving children nan courageousness to speak up successful difficult situations.

When she heard Leslie and Steve had formed a nonprofit benefitting kid maltreatment victims, it was her thought to telephone it “Protect Your Tots.”

Scarlet, who is simply a kid maltreatment survivor, says only 7% of kid maltreatment victims are abused by strangers. The remainder are abused by group they know.

“People deliberation that kid maltreatment is simply a problem that can’t beryllium solved, but that’s not true,” says Scarlet. “By school our children really to opportunity no, really to spot their intuition, really to group and take sides their boundaries, and really to travel to america if they consciousness uncomfortable aliases afraid.”

Scarlet says nan astir important proposal for parents trying to support their children safe is to salary attraction to nan internet.

“Online is wherever you request to beryllium wary of each strangers,” says Scarlet. “There is truthful overmuch that tin beryllium done, and our kids person overmuch much powerfulness to protect themselves than we think.”

Idaho Steel spokeswoman Andrea Todd was thrilled to support nan Grigg’s origin and show nan economical effect nan tater tot has had connected Idaho and nan remainder of nan world.

“The Tater Tot Festival is an look of acknowledgment to nan tater tot, and of nan heavy history of nan Idaho spud itself,” says Todd. “It affects not only our agriculture manufacture but each different industries that it employs.”