An afternoon community effort on August 31 provided the manpower to harvest the crop at the sixth annual Harvest For Hope in support of Rock Solid Refuge.
The eight combines which turned out for the harvest made quick work of the crop standing on the land donated by Wendell and Wendy Patzer. Proceeds from the crop will support Rock Solid Refuge, who are in their eighth year of running a year round residential program which works with teens who struggle with life controlling issues.
“Its been amazing. And just the buy in of all the neighbours, the community around,” Patzer said just before the combines started rolling. “They’ve really grabbed a hold of the work of Rock Solid Refuge, and it’s a way that they can give with their machinery and their time.”
“Another thing that has really been good is that the local fertilizer and chemical suppliers in town willingness to donate. Because if we have to buy everything we don’t raise that much money.”
Patzer noted that Rock Solid Refuge Executive Director Dallas Block was the youth pastor at his church in Frontier, so he has long been a supporter of this initiative.
“The vision was created for this place (Rock Solid Refuge) while still in Frontier. We helped when it was still at Simmie Bible Camp as a summer program. We helped with that a lot. And then I helped to actually build Rock Solid. So we just wanted to continue going. Rock Solid’s been a place where they tried not to incur debt, they have a little bit, but we just wanted to be able to give back something that we’ve been blessed in and be able to try and keep them out of debt.”
“That was the original vision, and now its just been an ongoing effort going towards general support these past few years…We want to give back and help restore lives of kids that have got into trouble.”
Patzer also wanted to extend his appreciation for the entire group of individuals involved in the project, not just those who are on hand for the harvest.
“Unfortunately, the harvest gets all the glory. But it’s the seeding, and the spraying. The agronomists that did the work for free to tell us what to do. This has kind of been a showing field to show some new techniques and different rates of fertilizer and chemicals. And we have grown amazing crops through that as well.”
