Community Rallies behind Reed’s Dairy after devasting fire

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI)- After a devasting fire took down a part of the Reed's Dairy location in Idaho Falls. In the days since the fire, many people have been asking how to support the local icon and dairy.

One such opportunity was given to the community on Saturday, January 27th, as many in the community gathered outside the Dairy and Ice cream store for Reed's Dairy on Broadway Street in Idaho Falls.

The crowd gathered early in the morning to purchase Reed's Products, listen to music, chat with their fellow members of the community, and come together for one purpose. The rally lasted for most of the morning.

A few other local businesses came to show their support of Reed's Dairy including Chik Fil A.

Paul Baker the president of the Greater Idaho Falls Chamber of Commerce, in an address to the crowd gathered at Reed's Dairy, presented Reed's Dairy, with a one-year membership of the Idaho Falls Chamber of Commerce.

"I wanted to sort of pass on a special gift. As just a token of our best wishes, as you navigate your way through the challenge of insurance and fire investigations and everything else that goes along with it, with a complimentary free membership to the chamber for the year," Baker said.

Baker said that since the fire, many have reached out to him and the chamber asking how they can help.

"(We) all wanted to kind of do something fun and just bring a little bit of joy and happiness and show the family that we do love and appreciate them and that we're here as a community to support them in any way we can, and I'm so happy that the turnout is great," Baker said.

Baker shares how they had, over 150 shares on social media of the invite to the rally and said it was great to see how much the community come together and support someone in need.

"We want to do whatever we can to help the family," Baker said. He added, "So today it's just been let's just just lighten the burden and just share some love to show some support. And so we can do that through the whole entire journey and help the family in any way we can to just let them know that they're loved and they're appreciated, that's what we're here for," Baker said.

Brandon Griffin, someone who grew up in the area says it was heartbaking to hear about the fire, but after hearing about the rally knew they had to come.

"I recognize a few faces and it's just we got to hear from the owner of Reeds Dairy, and you could tell he was really touched and it was really neat to see the owner of Reeds Dairy touched at the out reach from the community," Griffin said.

Griffin shared how he feels that Reed's dairy is a staple, in the community and hopes it conitnues to play a role in the community.

Netti another member of the community also shares a similar feeling.

"We love the reads like they are wonderful people. They're part of our community and we're here to support them. And be here for them in their hard time," Netti said.

She adds that it's also to see how many people came out to the community.

"To see them, support them, you see it on Facebook. And as you're talking to people in the community, we're all here for Reeds," Netti said.

Alan Reed says seeing everyone's support was overwhelming.

"This is just really overwhelming the community support. We live in a great place. We have great people here. That's why we live here is because we watch out for each other and help each other. And this is so humbling to me that it's hard for me to express," Reed said.

But its not just the Idaho Falls community, that has stepped up the dairy community around them as well.

"We've been really fortunate because, the dairy industry has stepped up for us. We've got a dairy bottling our milk for us. It has, of course, their label on it because our labels were burned up in the fire. So we're getting new labels printed, but we have a dairy produce are bottling milk for us and we have Valor Cheese making cheese for us. And then Gossner's down in Logan they're making the cheese curds for us, and Kari Anne's up in Rexburg gave us a place to start making ice cream," Reed said.

Currently a place in Salt Lake is mixing the Reed's Ice Cream according to the Reed's formula.

"So our processing takes a little bit of time for people to understand and do, but they've been really good and and we're getting there. We're getting our products back made by somebody else, and in a year and a half or when we get our new building built, well, we'll start again," Reed said.

He says he's grateful for the two communities the Dairy is apart of for their support.