SOWING THE SEEDS OF CHARITY
Proceeds from crop sale matched four-to-one by feds to help people overseas
Albert Hofer helps fill a truck with nitrogen fertilizer prior to seeding a crop of barley just east of Coaldale as part of the Coaldale Lethbridge Community Growing Project.
They are growing crops for a cause. On Thursday, the Coaldale Lethbridge Food Grains Project seeded a quartersection with barley as part of the annual contribution to the Canadian Foodgrains Bank project.
Each year, the group secures land and plants a crop with the help of volunteers and donations. That crop is then harvested in the fall and the proceeds from the sale of the crop are matched four-to-one by the Canadian government for overseas efforts.
Elaine and Phil Klassen provided the quarter section this year.
“We’re super happy to donate to this project,” she said.
This is the second time the Klassens have donated their land, but they have been involved in the program since 1995.
“We’re so lucky to live in Canada,” she said. “We have so much freedom. And to see people starving and fighting for their lives, running from their countries and leaving their homes, it’s a compassionate thing to do to help others when we really haven’t experienced anything like that ourselves. “
Ed Donkersgoed, committee member for the Coaldale Lethbridge Foodgrains Bank Project, travelled to Lebanon in March as part of a group in order to get a better understanding of the impact the Foodgrains Bank is making around the world. He had an opportunity to experience the Syrian refugee crisis up close.
“We got to hear from refugees themselves, but also the organizations on the ground trying to help serve them and serve their needs,” he said.
“These were Palestinian and Syrian refugees making their way to Lebanon,” he said. “The Foodgrains Bank is extending food, security and food hampers to those people wherever they might be.”
He said he felt a mixed range of emotions when he heard the stories of the hardships the refugees have endured.
“You have a full range of heartache and heartbreak, and hearing their stories of what they have to go through just to get away from the immediate danger. They have almost nothing where they ended up. At the same time, once they started receiving some of the food from the hampers, they started to show amazing resolve, resiliency, and hope even — in spite of their circumstances.”
“When the crisis started, they told us ‘every person has a story,’” he said. “And now everyone is a story.”
Donkersgoed said one of those stories came from a 23-year-old man named Muhammad, a Syrian from Aleppo who spoke about his journey to Lebanon and how he had not heard from anyone in his family for more than six years.
“(He talked about) coming to a Foodgrains Bank and getting the help he needed. The hope he expressed, and the thankfulness he expressed for people who were so far away and were doing what they could was unbelievable.
“If I could bottle that feeling of pride and the hope that came through his incredible story, we could make millions more.”
He said the trip confirmed his thoughts on what Foodgrains Bank is doing and the impact it is having on real people.
“They operate in more than 40 countries, and they are in the worst situations that humanity manages to dish out. But we are making an impact. We are helping.”
In 2014-15, the Foodgrains Bank helped 1.1 million people in 39 countries. Foodgrains Bank programs are implemented by member agencies in the developing world.
For more information on the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, contact foodgrainsbank.ca.
For local donation information, call Larry Penner at 403-382-7222.
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