Lending a handKatie Ryan ,
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Motorists driving on North Dakota Highway 46 probably didn’t notice, but a man’s livelihood was preserved Monday.
Two volunteers from Farm Rescue helped Gordon Schlenker,
Gackle,
harvest about 75 acres of soybeans Monday. Farm Rescue, a non-profit
organization founded by Bill Gross, a commercial pilot and former farmboy from around
The volunteers plan to continue harvesting until all of Schlenker’s 300 acres are completed.
Both men — Bill Krumwiede, Voltaire, N.D., and Smokey Wright, Minot — are retired and volunteer with Farm Rescue because they like the work and they like helping people.
“I’m up a lot more hours, I guess,” Krumwiede said of the difference between working full-time and volunteering with Farm Rescue. He is also the assistant director of Farm Rescue. But just as he begins to get modest and say he doesn’t work that hard, he gets cut off.
“I was just going to say that he doesn’t work anyway,” Wright joked.
The jokes, pranks and friendly jabs at each other are just part of fun of the field, but volunteers like Krumwiede and Wright have other reasons for devoting days and weeks to someone else’s farm.
“I guess we feel that we’re helping people that need help,” Krumwiede said.
Volunteers are helping Schlenker because he is with a family member who is battling a severe illness.
This year alone, Farm Rescue volunteers will help or have helped with
about 20 farms across the state including Reid Jawaski’s
in
Over the weekend, volunteers harvested Jawaski’s 400 acres of soybeans. Jawaski broke his back in a car accident and is in physical and occupational therapy for about four hours each day. He can walk with a cane, he said, but not for long distances. In fact, his body is in a turtle-shell-like cast until his back heals.
“Basically, I have to relearn to walk, is what it amounts to,” he said
from the MeritCare Health System in
Jawaski said he is grateful for the work of the Farm Rescue volunteers.
“It’s a godsend in a way, you know,” he said.
The volunteers would do more, said Board Secretary Wynn Rasmussen of James-town, but cannot without more volunteers and hours in the day. Volunteers of all kinds are needed, Gross said, not just farm hands. Right now, the volunteers need help finding routes that are easily accessible for large machinery. Monetary donations are helpful as well. Some businesses, like ADM-Northern Sun/Sunflower Plant in Enderlin, N.D., Fred’s Farm Supply, Dakota Valley Electric Co-op and Dakota Prairie Ag, have already stepped up to help.
“When it comes to an operation, there’s a lot more than driving a tractor,” Rasmussen said.
As for Wright and Krumwiede, they will continue volunteering as long as the weather allows.
“It’s been good, yes … feels like it’s going to be a good day today,” Krumwiede said.
For more information, visit www.farmrescue.org.
Reprinted with permission of
Jamestown Sun. October 02, 2007