A combine used by Farm Rescue volunteers works in a field on the Justin Metzger farm south of Eureka. Farm Rescue is a nonprofit organization that helps family farmers who have experienced a crisis, like the tornado that hit the Metzger farm.

Coming to the rescue

N.D.-based group assists Eureka tornado victims

By Russ Keen, American News Writer

Published on Thursday, August 02, 2007

EUREKA - What a great wheat harvest this year for Justin and Jessica Metzger of rural Eureka.

Yields in some fields are running 50 to 60 bushels per acre, and total strangers have come from hundreds of miles away to help combine. What's more, the drama unfolding this week will be featured on national television.

What a contrast to summer 2006, when the Metzgers' stunted, dried-up wheat fields were never harvested because it wasn't worth the expense. Then came the tornado of Aug. 24, 2006, that obliterated their home and other buildings on their farm south of town.

The tornado explains why four North Dakotans, mostly retired farmers, are at the Metzger farm this week helping to combine. They are volunteers with Farm Rescue. It's a North Dakota-based, nonprofit organization with a mission to help farm families who need assistance because of injury, illness or a severe act of nature.

“This is unbelievable,” Jessica said Wednesday at the farm. “We so appreciate it. We are very thankful for Farm Rescue.”

Busy with harvest, Justin had less time to talk.

“It's a great organization,” he said. “It's wonderful.”

The North Dakota men aren't total strangers to the Metzgers. But they were in the spring when coming to sow the wheat being harvested now.

“Planting alone was a big help for us,” Jessica said. “We were satisfied with that.”

To see the men return to harvest what they sowed is “overwhelming,” she said.

National television takes note: A crew from television's “Today” show, came to the farm earlier this week to interview the Metzgers, Jessica said. Another crew from the same show is scheduled to show up Saturday to film Farm Rescue's harvesting effort.

The story is scheduled to air on the NBC show on Aug. 9, she said.

Harvesting at the Metzgers is a historic event for Farm Rescue, marking the first time it has helped with a harvest, said founder Bill Gross of Seattle. He flies a Boeing 747 all over the world as a pilot for UPS, one of the corporate sponsors of Farm Rescue.

Gross grew up on farm near Jamestown and spends part of his time on a farm he owns in that area.

Strong S.D. connection: RDO Equipment, which has headquarters in Fargo, N.D., loans all the machinery Farm Rescue uses in its mission free of charge, Gross said. The equipment volunteers are using at the Metzgers came from RDO in Aberdeen.

South Dakota Wheat Growers and Dacotah Bank, both based in Aberdeen, are also corporate sponsors. Having these sponsors is one of the reasons Farm Rescue wants to expand deeper into South Dakota in 2008, Gross said.

He founded the organization in 2005, when it concentrated on going to farm shows and other events to let people know it existed. Farm Rescue began helping on farms in 2006, when it assisted 10 North Dakota farm families.

So far this year, it has come to the aid of 12 North Dakotans for planting and is scheduled to help six North Dakotans with harvest. The Metzgers and another South Dakota family near Browns Valley, Minn., being helped this year are the first two South Dakota families Farm Rescue has served.

And harvesting this week at the Metzgers marks the first time the organization has helped with a harvest anywhere, Gross said.

The organization seeks more sponsors and volunteers.

For more information, go to www.farmrescue.org or call (701) 526-0947. The address is P.O. Box 1100, Jamestown, ND 58402.

Reprinted with permission of Aberdeen American News. August 02, 2007