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HOLLAND, Mich. — For many schools along the lakeshore, it's not unusual to sell pigs-in-a-blanket as a fundraiser, but some say none do it quite like South Olive Christian School in Holland. Just this school year, the school began using a facility now dedicated to this cause, helping them create thousands of these tasty treats in a matter of hours.

Victoria White is an interim administrator with the school and a parent. She told 13 ON YOUR SIDE, "It's been a thing that people just know. South Olive's pigs are the best. What can I say?"

It's a tradition that started in the 1980s when the school was in need of funding for a new gym.

"So, our dough is a secret recipe that we have that was provided by a South Olive Christian School parent, long ago," said Heather Rodgers, the development director for South Olive Christian School.

"We’ve been making that same dough recipe and that same meat recipe ever since," said White.

It's an effort that would not be possible without the volunteer work of parents.

"Our parents come together a couple times a month and have pig-making days," said Rodgers.

White described what one of those days might look like, saying, "We’d make them until they were done. Sometimes it was 9 p.m. and we’d throw a party and sometimes it was 11 p.m. and we’d go ‘one more batch to roll and wrap and bag and then sweep.’"

Each family commits about 15 hours of volunteer service for the school year, "and that can grandparents, it can be an aunt and uncle, it could be an older sibling maybe," said White. "We have a great time here. So, you do come to volunteer and you’re put to work but the community that forms when you’re doing something like this together, the conversation that happens, the connections that parents make – it's just an incredible thing."

That rolling and wrapping all used to be done in the school kitchen. This year, they’re renting out a separate facility just for the pigs.

"We have produced 7,100 dozen. That's 85,000 individual pigs-in-a-blanket just this year," said Rodgers as she explained further that's, "four-and-a-half miles of pigs."

Soon, volunteers will be able to make even more in the same amount of time.

"This machine here was custom-designed for our pigs-in-a-blanket operation," said Rodgers.

The machine, appropriately named the Pigonator 5000, was created by Calvin University engineering students, with the help of Criterion Automation.

According to Rodgers, "Our parent volunteers can create and make our pigs-in-a-blanket at 50 dozen an hour. This machine, at its slowest, will do 150 dozen an hour."

"Our pig sales are directly related to our tuition costs and our goal is to continue to grow the pigs business to keep our tuition lower than all of the other schools in the local area and our tuition is already just over half of some of the local private schools," said White.

This is all part of the school's mission, said Rodgers. "We want Christian education to be affordable for anyone who desires to be a part of our school."

"This year, we did have to increase tuition as all schools have had to with costs increasing but we said with those 15 parent service hours, that's keeping your tuition $1,000 lower," said White, who said the pigs are about more than just the profit.

"It's just been such an enriching part of our school culture. This is a community that has roots in being in the Dutch agriculture and so a pig-in-a-blanket is a sort of comfort food to this community," said White, adding that, "People will drive from Rockford and Caledonia and all sorts of places to say, ‘You have your pigs, right?’"

The school is planning to start using the Pigonator this week.

White told 13 ON YOUR SIDE the pigs generate about $45,000 in profits each school year. They’re sold at the school and also at various farmers markets and community events.

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