Leigh FFA Participates in Event Helping Local Farmer
Launch the media gallery 1 playerBy: Leah Pinkston, freshman, and Emily Loseke, senior at Leigh High School
In an amazing display of community support and togetherness, on October 2, at 9:30 am, a harvest team managed to accomplish an incredible feat.
A week after local Leigh farmer Randy Wendt had open heart double bypass surgery shortly after his son Josh’s wedding, the community was called together to help put the 2020 corn and soybean harvest in motion.
What started out as an outpouring of concern from individuals asking “How can we help?” eventually snowballed into a gigantic, highly organized community effort dubbed “Farmers Helping Farmers.”
In all, a total of 14 combines, 21 tractors and grain carts, and 20 trucks worked together to harvest the fields and get it hauled to the Co-op. This is an estimated combined $9 million dollars of equipment and an estimated 50+ neighborhood farmers who helped with the cause, as well as countless more who worked behind the scenes or donated cash to the efforts.
In the end, every effort to the Farmers Helping Farmers cause resulted in nearly 1,100 acres harvested, with countless individuals and businesses donating time, food, and money to the efforts.
The local Leigh High School FFA chapter was proud to have been able to help with these efforts. They were able to take time out of their day around the lunch hour to help distribute meals in the fields. They also rode around in combines and grain carts with area farmers helping get the task completed.
Junior FFA chapter officer Kanyon Held said, “Delivering meals to everyone helping the Wendt family with their harvest was a great way for our chapter to give back to the community. We were all happy to help, and it was great to see so many people from our community reaching out. I’m glad we got to be a part of it.”
In a Facebook post, Dave Wendt, brother to Randy and Leigh FFA alum, said, “My brother Randy and his wife Tammy, my nephews Josh and Nick, as well as our entire family are humbled and eternally grateful for the outpouring of generosity and love shown by the Leigh area community…Farmers from miles around, who all still had their own harvest to tend to, gave up a precious, near perfect, early October day to help out a neighbor. They selflessly let their crops stand in the field, while they operated their valuable equipment for someone else’s benefit…This was a great example for these FFA students to witness firsthand how an ag community works together and pulls together to support each other.”
Leigh FFA Chapter Advisor Mrs. Alyssa Went, said, "It was so awesome to be able to be a part of a large community event, and the FFA members loved seeing everyone come together. I am super proud of the kids wanting to help out and give back to the community."