JTA Article on Corky's Fundraiser

JTA Washington Bureau Chief, Ron Kampeas wrote a nice article on our Corky's fundraiser from earlier this year.  Thanks again to Dena Wruble and Aileen Cooper for all of their hard work in making it happen:

Converting a happy pig into a kosher cow: A Memphis fundraising story

By Ron Kampeas · April 30, 2013

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The original Corky's logo featuring a pig next to the kosher version of the logo featuring a cow. (Corky's)

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (JTA) -- The thick scent of a peppery rub wafted through the Margolin Hebrew Academy and Corky the Pig embroidered his chef’s hat with a K and became a cow.

Just before Purim, the famed Memphis barbecue joint Corky's, with a hog for its mascot, koshered one of its smokers for a brisket fundraiser on behalf of the city’s Orthodox Jewish day school. Organizers explained that the unusual marriage of brachas and BBQ was a product of a parlous economy, a small school in need of refurbishing with a limited fundraising base and the laid-back traditions of a “Shalom y’all” Southern Jewish way of living.

“We need to find any revenue we can,” said Rabbi Gil Perl, the school’s dean. “We asked ourselves, ‘Do we have a product here valuable enough for a large market nationally?’ ”

In Memphis, one answer to the question was barbecue, and one of the best answers was Corky’s, a top-rated eatery with three branches in the city...

Read the rest of the article here.