Bumper crop raises funds for Rock Solid Refuge
A very good barley crop will raise a significant amount of funds to support the work done by Rock Solid Refuge.
Harvest for Hope is an annual crop fundraiser for the non-profit organization’s residential program for teen boys.
“It was probably our best year ever,” Rock Solid Refuge Executive Director Dallas Block said. “This was the 10th year and it’s just been an incredible blessing to see the farmers continue to embrace the work that we do at Rock Solid Refuge.”
The harvest took place on Aug. 24 near Rhineland, which is southeast of Swift Current, on 160 acres of land provided by the Sogn Family Foundation in Shaunavon to the Harvest for Hope initiative. The barley crop had a yield of 96 bushels per acre.
“It was unreal, just really incredible,” he said. “This year was an exceptional crop. The moisture came as it needed to and the inputs were apparently just right, everything from the farmers side of it to all the other companies that got involved. It all converged to be a bumper crop and just a tremendous success.”
Participating farmers and agribusinesses are combining their skills and passion for agriculture through this initiative to support the committed efforts of Rock Solid Refuge staff and volunteers to help teenage boys during a challenging time in their life.
“Our passions meet together to make a real difference in people’s lives,” he said. “So that’s the kind of partnership that it is.”
This crop fundraiser was originally located on a different piece of land, which was sold several years ago. Harvest for Hope then relocated to the present site in 2019, which allowed the project to continue uninterrupted.
“It’s close enough to the other site,” he noted. “The same farmers are really involved. They all got land in the near vicinity and so they know the land well. We have a lot of the same companies involved year to year. They get to know what the best inputs are and of course the right rotations for crops in order to maximize the yield and maintain a really good soil quality as well. So the people involved just continue to do a bang-up job on all fronts.”
Companies involved as Harvest for Hope sponsors in 2022 are SWT, Nufarm, B & A Petroleum, Pioneer Co-op, Ultimate Yield Management, Trinity Bio Chem, Braylin Acres, Syngenta, FMC, and BASF.
The downtown Tim Hortons in Swift Current provided donuts and coffee for the pre-harvest meal, which provided an opportunity for participants to enjoy some fellowship. There were nine combines and a support team of trucks, tractors and trailers to take off the crop.
“It was just really neat, these guys bringing their equipment from different places in the area, and everybody just chatting and relaxed,” he said. “And yet, at the same time they all had their own crops to still take off. As far as I know, none of them were done harvesting their own crops, but there was just this friendly, relaxed environment where they were all there to accomplish something together that meant a lot to all of them.”
Harvest for Hope has raised anywhere from around $30,000 to $60,000 a year for Rock Solid Refuge, depending on growing conditions and crop yield. The value of this year’s crop will probably be closer to $100,000 when it is sold, which will make it the best year to date for this initiative.
“As far as a single fundraiser, it’s one of our key big fundraisers of the year actually,” Block noted. “What I said to the farmers that day is just the incredible blessing that this project is, because most fundraisers that a charity does are not third-party fundraisers. In other words, we’ve got to put a lot of our own manpower and energy into fundraisers, but a third-party fundraiser like this where really a group of people take it on, is the kind of blessing that’s hard to put into words.”
The funds raised from this harvest will assist programs and activities at the Rock Solid Refuge campus on a 60-acre property northeast of Shaunavon. The 12-month residential program provides support for male youth between the ages of 13 and 18 who are struggling with life controlling issues such as addictions and behavioural challenges.
“Funds get allocated as they’re most needed,” he said. “A lot of times we’re able to take the funds from this project and put them in a separate bank account and use them for special projects or maybe there’s a student and a family in need that doesn’t have the resources to pay the tuition that we ask for.”
Fundraising campaigns help to keep the tuition fee lower than the actual cost of the program, but sometimes families struggle to raise the funds for the tuition.
“So then we can use some funds like this to subsidize that,” he said. “It does cost a lot to do what we do and to have enough staff to run a 24/7 treatment recovery program. It just simply takes a lot of resources, and this is one of the fundraisers of the year that gives us confidence to keep doing what we’re doing and hiring staff and upgrading facilities et cetera so that we’re a stable organization to do the work that we do.”
Block felt the work done at Rock Solid Refuge indicates there is an ongoing and growing need for support offered to families and young males.
“The need is growing,” he said. “A lot of the isolation that happened for our young people over the last twoand-a-half years has driven some of the addiction issues even deeper. A lot of young people has spent a lot of time indoors, online, alone, and isolated. That’s been a pretty big challenge for a lot of them and then they look for some avenue to create a different reality. Substances and addictive behaviour are things that they very easily get caught up in. … Families continue to be desperate and we work with young people from all across Canada, because they’re finding us online and they’re finding help and hope where they weren’t in other ways.”