The Farming Families of Plymouth County (IA)—June 2022 by The Farming Families Magazine

June 2022 | www.AgeMedia.pub

of Plymouth County

Faith / Family / Friends / Farming

Touch of Hope School campus at Simonette, Haiti. Photo by Lindsay Williams.

SPECIAL ISSUE

MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN NORTHWEST IOWA AND AROUND THE WORLD

Hope Food Pantry freely shares food with local families in need.

Sales of Haitian coffee and Haitian-made mugs support work to build facilities and provide teachers at a school in Haitii. One of the classrooms is pictured above.

A group of Le Mars Gehlen Catholic elementary school students pack nutritious meals for people in need in Honduras through a program called Then Feed Just One.

The Farming Families Magazine | www.agemedia.pub | February 2021

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Brock Auction Company did a great job in selling my equipment. They were very professional and got top dollar for my equipment. Bruce, Austin, and the Brock Auction Company staff were well organized and made the whole process of the sale comfortable and easy. Mark Kehrberg Whether you want to buy or sell Agricultural property of any kind, Brock Auction Co. Inc. & Bruce R. Brock Real Estate L.L.C. “The Land Marketing Professionals for Over 100 Years” will be glad to sit down with you for a confidential, no obligation consultation. See for yourself why the professionals at Brock Auction Co. have sold 100’s of millions of dollars worth of Real Estate for customers & clients just like you. Put the Brock Team to work for you!

Brock Auction handled our retirement farm equipment sale. We are very pleased with our decision to use them. Throughout the process, we found them to be extremely reliable, knowledgeable, and trustworthy. We were able to call them anytime we had questions, and we always got answers. Each step was explained clearly. When photos were done, it was completed in a much shorter time than we anticipated, which clearly demonstrated their expertise and practice. It was recommended that one tractor be ‘advertised’ prior to photos of it. The description of this tractor brought calls, and we quickly discovered that Brock Auction has an outstanding reputation. We also appreciated how they screened the calls prior to forwarding to us. After the sale, Brock Auction continued to answer our questions and settlement was even explained to us that day. People at the auction commented to us on how well Brock Auction handled everything and were amazed at the prices he was able to get for us. People are still commenting on several farm equipment pieces being sold at such a high price.

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Darrell Scott Pat Robeson Steve Gaul Adam Karrels Mapleton, June IA 2022 |Sioux City, IA Hawarden, IA FamiliesSturgis, SD 3 www.agemedia.pub | The Farming Magazine 712-208-0003 712-259-1734 712-551-6586 605-490-1701

The right care. The right place. The right time.

of Sioux County PUBLISHERS Garrett and Mindy Gross, AGE Media EDITOR & IOWA MANAGER Bob Fitch, AGE Media Direct advertising inquiries, story submissions and other correspondence to: 712-551-4123 bob@agemedia.pub © The Farming Families, Age Media & Promotion The Farming Families is distributed free exclusively to the farmers, ranchers and producers in rural Sioux, Plymouth and Lyon Counties. All rights reserved. Content in this magazine should not be copied in any way without the written permission of the publisher. The Farming Families assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or photographs. Content in articles, editorial and advertisements are not necessarily endorsed by The Farming Families and Age Media & Promotion.

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MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN PLYMOUTH COUNTY

Richard Seivert is the director of Then Feed Just One. At times, there is enough food in the organization’s Le Mars warehouse to provide half a million meals.

“If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one." ~ Mother Teresa ~

‘FEED JUST ONE’ HAS PROVIDED MILLIONS OF MEALS By Bob Fitch

“I don’t care what color skin the child has, what language they speak, how they dress, or what religion they are. You know what I care about? A hungry child is a hungry child,” said Richard Seivert, director of a Le Mars-based nonprofit organization called Then Feed Just One. 6

The Farming Families Magazine | www.agemedia.pub | June 2022

Hunger is a real issue nearly everywhere in the world. More than 20 years ago, Richard was helping in Honduras on a mission providing basic medical care. The late Dr. Gary Carlton, a surgeon in Sioux City, was among the doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists and others on the mission trip. After a hard day of seeing to the needs of patients, Richard said Dr. Carlton told him: “‘Never again. Never again do I want to go into a village without food. I treated a lady today, gave her the best medicine I could that will last her for a month or two months. But she was disappointed – she wondered why we didn’t bring food. She was hungry.”

On a separate mission trip with Gehlen students, a group of senior boys tried to share food with an eight-year-old boy who had been helping on a water project. But the little boy said he couldn’t take the food because “it wasn’t his day to eat.” The little boy pointed to his sister and said, “Give it to her. She needs it more than I do.” “Stories like that made me want to do more,” Richard said. In 2005, a group of volunteers brought an organization called Kids Against Hunger to Le Mars Gehlen Catholic School. In their first effort, students, teachers, parents and other supporters packed 260,000 meals in 12 hours. “After two years, I got some of my friends together and we started to build our own program. Mother Theresa once said, ‘If you can’t feed 100 people, then feed just one.’ I thought those four words – ‘Then Feed Just One’ – encapsulated everything I firmly believe as a human being. No child should have to go to bed hungry.” THOUSANDS OF MEALS AT 17.5 CENTS EACH Then Feed Just One has grown into a mobile food packaging program which delivers life-saving nutritious meals for starving children and their families. The organization purchases the ingredients for a simple food mixture, which includes rice from Missouri and Arkansas; and, from Minnesota, soy, freeze dried vegetables, and a powder of minerals and vitamins needed in the bodies of children who are malnourished and hungry. The ingredients, packaging and other materials are brought by the organization to various schools, churches, clubs and communities who do the mixing and packaging. Each group pays for the number of meals they package – the 17.5 cents per meal they pay covers the cost of the food ingredients, packaging and the complicated shipping process. In addition to the immediate area, Then Feed Just One has coordinated packaging events in cities such as Rapid City, Fort Dodge, and Carroll. But every single effort makes a difference. “During the pandemic, I had two one-person packing teams. They wanted to pack food, so I set up a table for them out here and they packed. One of them packed a box of 216 meals. It cost her $37.80 to feed 216 children. That’s what it’s all about.”

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Because the administration of Then Feed Just One is done all by volunteers, the 17.5 cents per meal is about half the cost of other organizations doing similar services. One 13.8 ounce bag of food is the equivalent of six meals. The numbers start to become staggering from there … 36 bags to a box; 66 boxes on a pallet which equals 14,256 meals per pallet. Twenty-three full pallets were in the warehouse on May 1st; equaling a total of 373,888 meals. Often there are more than half a million meals in the warehouse. Empty 40-foot refer trailers which hauled Dole bananas north to the U.S. haul the food packages to Honduras via Mississippi to Florida to Guatemala to Cortez, Honduras and then to Puerto Castilla. He said their connection with the Ancient

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Order of Malta (think Knights of Columbus magnified) has helped expedite moving their food through the ports in Honduras. About half the food goes to the capitol of Tegucigalpa and is distributed to children’s homes, orphanages, feeding centers and hospitals. The other half goes into the mountains to the Tolupan people who live in the Flower Mountains. They are the oldest indigenous group in Honduras. Their Tol language predates the Mayan civilization and, interestingly, connects them to the southern-most Sioux in the U.S. THREE COLLABORATIVE MISSION GROUPS Le Mars Gehlen Catholic High School students, parents, staff and supporters packaged thousands of meals at this recent event.

Bags and bags of high-quality textured soy protein which is a key ingredient in the meals packaged for delivery to Honduras.

Then Feed Just One is part of three interconnected charities based in Le Mars. The other two are Gehlen Catholic Mission Honduras and Mission Honduras Le Mars. Essentials that Americans often take for granted – clean water, nutritional food and basic medical care – are at the heart of their work. Volunteers also work on building homes. Richard started Gehlen Catholic Mission Honduras during his teaching, counseling and coaching career at Gehlen. Gehlen’s Carolyn Bickford coordinates the student mission trips now, while Richard is the director of the other two groups. Clean, safe water is not the standard in many parts of Honduras. According to Richard, “Lots of diseases come from water in streams. Diarrhea is the second leading child killer in the world. I can’t say ‘clean water’ enough. If I said it 10,000 times, it wouldn’t be enough.” Most water projects require the digging of a well (often with pickaxes through rock) and constructing a

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brick and mortar water tank, purchasing a pump, digging trenches from the water tank to each village home, laying water pipes and hooking up the system. Most of the construction work is done by Hondurans and materials are purchased in-country to help support the economy. Mission Honduras Le Mars and Gehlen Catholic Mission Honduras raise the money to purchase the materials. “In Honduras, you know what you’ll never see with the Tolupan people, some of the poorest people in the western hemisphere? They don’t smile,” Richard said. “Their lives are so hard day-to-day. If it isn’t raining and raining so much it drowns the crop, then it’s hot for months and they’re burning out. Then it’s hurricane season and they might get wiped out again. It’s just one thing after another for them.”

Each box contains the equivalent of 216 meals.

He concluded, “Their society is at least 100 years behind ours. Some of the early water projects we did were with windmills because they didn’t have electricity to pump the water. We in the United States absolutely take so much for granted.”

This Honduran woman will hike barefoot 2-3 miles home carrying 66 pounds of food on her back.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.thenfeedjustone.org www.gehlenmissionhonduras.org www.missionhonduraslemars.org 712-540-3062 rseivert2@yahoo.com

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The Farming Families Magazine | www.agemedia.pub | June 2022

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June 2022 | www.agemedia.pub | The Farming Families Magazine

MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN LYON COUNTY

Renae Grooters and Kayla Raymond at Rosie’s Boutique in Rock Rapids. Revenue generated at the gift shop and coffee house supports Touch of Hope ministries.

STRENGTHENING HAITIAN FAMILIES HOLISTICALLY By Bob Fitch

Education, entrepreneurship and Christian missions cross paths at Touch of Hope Ministries, a nonprofit based in Rock Rapids, Iowa, and Haiti, a Caribbean country that shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic to its east. 12

The Farming Families Magazine | www.agemedia.pub | June 2022

In 2006, Webert Raymond started a free school for the children living in his home village of Simonette in Haiti. Only about 5 percent of Haitian students graduate from high school. Webert had been one of the fortunate five percent and then was able to attend university. He recognized the necessity of education for equipping future generations with the tools to rise up and out of extreme poverty. In 2010, God’s will connected Webert with the Dell and Renae Grooters family of Rock Rapids. The couple and their children – Kayla, Megan and Luke – first went to Haiti in June 2009. They felt a strong calling to serve there in a greater capacity.

In December 2009, Dell and Renae purchased a home in the village of Simonette and, in 2011, founded Touch of Hope, a nonprofit ministry allowing them to become more involved in the village and surrounding area. Dell previously operated a feed yard outside of Rock Rapids and Renae did freelance home décor services while raising their three children. Webert’s school grew from 30 to 80 students between 2006 and 2010. Touch of Hope’s first big goal was to raise enough money to construct a new school building and provide the funds to pay teachers. The school has grown exponentially in the past 12 years and now has more than 1,000 students and 80 teachers. Since then, the ministry has helped raise the roof on seven school buildings, a cafeteria and an office building. After graduating from the University of Northern Iowa in 2012, Kayla Grooters moved to Haiti to help at the school. She quickly discovered too many of the children were arriving at school hungry. Instead of seeking a source of food donations, Kayla focused instead on job creation and income generation for “mamas.” “Our whole philosophy focuses on how can we strengthen the family unit in the most holistic way. If mom has a job, the odds of her being able to feed the kids and keep them in school are much higher.”

The Raymond family: Loveson, Webert, Zion, Rubie, Kayla, Josiah, Jephte, Wishla.

Rosie’s directly employs 30 women who hand-stitch greeting cards and make banana-paper products. Kayla said intentional buying decisions truly make a difference. “If more people purchased the greeting cards we sell online and in our store, we could go from employing 30 women to maybe 100 women – which would affect 1,000 children. It all has ripple effects.”

After moving to Haiti, Kayla worked for a jewelry store. She connected the dots between Touch of Hope ministries and her jewelry experience and the talents of some women in local Haitian communities. In 2014, she opened a store named Rosie’s in Cabaret, Haiti. Two years later, her mom opened a Rosie’s Boutique in Rock Rapids. Dell and Renae recently purchased the building at the corner of Highway 9 and North Story Street. The main level is Rosie’s gift and coffee shop and they have an apartment in the upper level. (The store was named in honor Rosie, Kayla’s first goddaughter in Haiti whose mother was a jewelry artisan with whom Kayla worked. Rosie died from pneumonia when she was 13 months old.) While civil unrest forced the original shop in Haiti to close, Rosie's Boutique and coffee shop in Rock Rapids is thriving, as are online sales at www.rosiesboutiquehaiti.com. EMPOWERING THE ARTISANS Rosie’s purchases product from 10 different companies who collectively employ over 400 Haitians. Kayla said, “Each company believes and practices the same ethics we have: Provide a fair, living wage to the artisan; empower and equip the artisan; educate people about the realities in Haiti; and work to keep families together.”

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Haitian coffee producers were wiped out by a hurricane six years ago. “Just drinking Haitian coffee could change an entire village. The more parents we can empower and provide employment opportunities to will result in less children abandoned into orphanages.” OUR HEART AND SOUL REMAINS IN HAITI Besides finding her life’s calling in Haiti, Kayla also found her life partner. She and Webert were married in January 2014. Prior to the wedding, they gained legal guardianship to three children: Jephte, Loveson, and Wishla. They have since welcomed three biological children: Rubie, Zion and Josiah. In the fall of 2019, the couple moved to the U.S. “In the last two years, there’s been times where I think ‘Oh, I wish I were in Haiti.’ But I’ve realized we’re now in a season where it’s more important for us to be here raising money and running our website at full capacity to help fund the work in Haiti,” she said. “We’ll live in America for however long God asks of us, yet our hearts and souls remain so alive for Haiti and its people. Each day I still have the honor of waking up and working for Rosie’s and our mamas. Each day Webert is in communication with Haiti and leading in some different way. While we aren’t physically there anymore, our work continues on by the grace of God.”

The top photo shows the original school established by Webert Raymond in Simonette, Haiti. The bottom photo shows the multi-building campus today. Plans are to add two more school buildings in the near future. Photo by Lindsay Williams.

In addition to the children’s school, the artisan business, and a revolving small business loan program, Touch of Hope includes a ministry where they provide a program of general education, spiritual foundation courses and small business loans to mothers in Simonette. Also, they’ve started building houses for families. “I know I don’t work well when I don’t rest at night, so how can anyone be expected to work well or study well when they’re sleeping on the dirt or on a piece of cardboard?” A donor from the Twin Cities is funding the construction of 10 homes each quarter in Simonette. “So we’re expecting to build 40 homes a year,” Kayla said. “We have a Haitian project manager and he has two different teams of laborers who build the homes. There are 25 or 30 Haitians employed in the house building projects.” Building materials are also purchased in Haiti in order to support the local economy and for Touch of Hope to stay true to its holistic approach of a hand up instead of a hand out. WISDOM FOR CHURCH MISSION TRIPS

Two students eating their daily hot meal. 14

Webert Raymond and his brother, Jude, who runs the school on a day-to-day basis.

The Farming Families Magazine | www.agemedia.pub | June 2022

For churches who are considering a mission trip in the post-pandemic period, Kayla encourages them to do a heart-check on their motivations. “If

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June 2022 | www.agemedia.pub | The Farming Families Magazine

you’re sending a team, send skilled labor – people who can actually do the job that locals are unable to do. Or go do trainings to further equip the locals – whether that means farmers going to teach more agricultural skills or doctors or dentists providing hands-on services.

Rosie’s Boutique employs 30 Haitian women who hand-stitch greeting cards which are for sale online or at the store in Rock Rapids.

A variety of mugs made in Haiti are sold at Rosie’s Boutique.

Jewelry made by Haitian artisans is sold by Rosie’s Boutique.

Touch of Hope includes a ministry where they provide a program of general education, spiritual foundation courses and small business loans to mothers in Simonette.

“There will always be a place for short-term missions – I started on a short-term mission. But hopefully your mission trip is not young kids going to paint houses and take pictures with the little kids. Ask the question: What is the true purpose for the trip? Are we going to serve and equip them, or are we going to serve ourselves? I get it – you want to have your hands and feet in it, too. But sometimes we were creating projects for missionaries when there really wasn’t a project to be done. We almost had to serve them even though they were coming to serve us.” She encouraged anyone who is thinking about taking a mission trip to read the book “When Helping Hurts,” by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. The book says poverty is much more than simply a lack of material resources, and it takes much more than donations and handouts to solve it. “When Helping Hurts” shows how some alleviation efforts, failing to consider the complexities of poverty, have actually (and unintentionally) done more harm than good. An example in the book describes a mission which provided ongoing donations of free eggs to a community in need. However, within a year, those donations had pushed all the local chicken farmers out of business. The book takes on the “white savior” complex and catalyzes the idea that sustainable change comes not from the outside in, but from the inside out. Many members of the Rock Rapids community are supportive of Rosie’s Boutique by purchasing Haitian-made greeting cards, jewelry or mugs. It’s also a comfortable place to enjoy a cup of hot Haitian coffee. Three local churches have been especially generous in their support to the ministry: Tabernacle Baptist of George, First Reformed in Sheldon, and Sunnybrook in Sioux City. In addition, online sales are made to customers across the nation. “God really established a beautiful foundation for our ministry,” Kayla said. “We are faithful with it, but His timing on when it was established and how we obtained a national and international presence from our shop in Haiti before today’s extreme unrest there shows God’s fingerprints are all over it.” FOR MORE INFORMATION: Rosie’s Boutique/ Touch of Hope ministries

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712-472-2885 The philosophy of Touch of Hope is to strengthen the family unit in the most holistic way. “If mom has a job, the odds of her being able to feed the kids and keep them in school are much higher,” says Kayla Raymond. 16

The Farming Families Magazine | www.agemedia.pub | June 2022

www.touchofhopehaiti.com www.rosiesboutiquehaiti.com

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June 2022 | www.agemedia.pub | The Farming Families Magazine

The Farming Families Magazine | www.agemedia.pub | June 2022

DUST STORM, MAY 12, 2022 PHOTO BY CHRISTIAN BEGEMAN

June 2022 | www.agemedia.pub | The Farming Families Magazine

MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN SIOUX COUNTY

Marianne Sjaarda, coordinator of Hope Food Pantry in Sioux Center.

I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger, and you took me into your home. I needed clothes, and you gave me something to wear. ~ From the 25th chapter of Matthew ~

FOOD AND FRIENDLY SMILE By Bob Fitch

Hope Food Pantry exists to bring hope to people who are struggling with life more than most of us. “That can be in the form of food, but it can also be a friendly smile. We can look you in the face and give some dignity to your situation,” said Marianne Sjaarda, coordinator of the food pantry.

The Farming Families Magazine | www.agemedia.pub | June 2022

The pantry was the brainchild of the Center for Financial Education (CFE), where Marianne’s husband, Jim, was a board member. CFE is a Sioux Center nonprofit which offers free, spiritually-based advice on budget development, organizing debt, balancing a checkbook, managing bills, and paying creditors in a timely manner. Marianne and her long-time friend, Bev Jansen, who is the volunteer coordinator, jumped on to help right away. “The first step to solving a problem is to acknowledge it. The poverty here is well hidden if you choose not to look,” said Marianne. Every week she meets people who live in poverty and are in need of some help to put food on the table. “We can wring our hands or we can do something about it.”

Hope Food Pantry is located in the Southridge Plaza, directly to the west of Culver’s in Sioux Center. It is open every Wednesday from 1:30-5:30 p.m. Before the pandemic hit in 2020, about 75-80 families drove through the pantry’s pickup site in the four-hour period. Now it’s up to approximately 125 families every week. VOLUNTEERING HELPS RESTORE HOPE Each family coming through the pickup site receives a box which typically includes canned fruits and vegetables, eggs, cheese, bread, and fresh meat. Bev said it takes 12 volunteers to keep the process running smoothly each week. “You need the help of passionate individuals who want to see a flourishing community. Volunteering is a unique way to help restore hope and give back to your community.” Many churches, businesses and school classes have volunteered their time. Bev said, “What blessed me the most was a class of nursing students who volunteered to help. You could just see their compassion for people. It’s good to see a servant heart.” Her own grandchildren have helped at the food pantry. “They’re never too young to be exposed to this type of volunteering. It’s good to teach them that volunteering is part of being a member of the community.”

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June 2022 | www.agemedia.pub | The Farming Families Magazine

FREELY-GIVEN FOOD REFLECTS FREELY-GIVEN GRACE According to Marianne, “Some of our guests are immigrants and others have had some hard knocks in life. Not everybody was born with the same opportunities.” People are struggling to find work; there are victims of domestic violence, and widows. “Sometimes there’s generational dysfunction. Regardless of their situation, we’re here to welcome them.” The food is freely given – pointing to Christ’s great love for us and God’s free gift of grace, she said. “Along with the Bible stories we share with the children and the friendly atmosphere and prayer if asked for, we want to give them hope for the next few meals and hope for life in eternity.” Last year, Hope Food Pantry helped 1,065 different families, of which 56 percent came only once or twice. “So I know that we also serve the purpose of helping families get over a hump. You know, sometimes grandma goes on a new medicine and there’s not enough money left from her Social Security check at the end of the month,” she said. “In my position, I hear the comment occasionally that our guests are all just ‘takers.’ But we all know takers in every station of life. Because I’ve seen it, I will declare it, there is not a higher percentage of takers in our line on Wednesdays than the number of takers you might meet on the street. It’s a life attitude,” Marianne said. INNOVATIONS FROM STUDENTS Families visiting Hope Food Pantry on Wednesday afternoons receive enough food for approximately two or three days.

Facing such criticisms is more than balanced by the positives received from guests, donors and volunteers. A local high school class has been helping with projects all year. By the nature of being teenagers, they buck against the system and think outside the box. The class found labor-saving solutions for several hassles. One of Marianne’s least favorite tasks is to manually enter information about how many families are served and how many under age 18 are served each week. The teenagers created a bar code system which is going to eliminate all that hand-entry of data. During distribution on Wednesdays, some people need to come inside to shop for clothes or housewares. “Since Covid, we’ve limited the number of people inside to 15 who have 15 minutes each. That’s very hard to orchestrate. Thinking outside the box, the kids suggested a beeper system – and I discovered those aren’t very expensive. So I bought 30 beepers. If you’re coming inside, you get a beeper and when your beeper goes off it’s your turn.” Hope Food Pantry started small with just two or three shelves of food. Today, Marianne orders 9,000 pounds of food each month from the Food Bank of Siouxland. The pantry pays 18 cents per pound for food purchased from the Food Bank. At that price, donors who give cash to Hope Food Pantry are getting a lot of bang for their buck, she said.

Hope Food Pantry added used clothing and housewares to its services. 22

The Farming Families Magazine | www.agemedia.pub | June 2022

An additional 2,000 pounds are donated each month by farmers who give pork and beef; CenterFresh Eggs which gives 120 dozen eggs a week; and by retailers such as WalMart and HyVee. Businesses, churches, schools and others provide a wide breadth of support. Many smaller donors go above and beyond their means to support the pantry.

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A class from Dordt University who helped produce a video for the pantry’s website was struck by the fact that purchases from the Food Bank cost just 18 cents a pound. While college students are not likely to give cans of fruit to a food drive, the class put up a display near the campus dining room which demonstrated how much food a donation of $3 would buy. Students could scan a QR code to give $3 automatically. “I get a notice whenever someone gives a donation – my phone just lit up that day. It was the equivalent of a month’s worth of food they raised in two hours,” Marianne said. She also appreciates the collaboration among area nonprofits. “We give food boxes to Atlas and we give boxes to Family Crisis Center. And we get stuff from Melissa’s Hope Chest. There’s a lot of give and take. Promise Community Health Center provides bilingual staff members to help us when we’re short. If they know families with immediate needs, they contact me. There’s no competition. It’s a wonderful atmosphere to be in.” MINISTRY GROWS BEYOND FOOD

Hope Food Pantry buys 9,000 pounds of food each month from the Food Bank of Siouxland, plus receives donations from retailers and others.

While providing food is always the top priority, Hope has grown to also offer clothing and housewares. “Some of our guests have just moved here, or we’ve had cases of house fires, and there have been cases of domestic abuse where you leave in a hurry and you just need things to set up housekeeping.” Every week, about 200 pieces of clothing are shared. “When their kids outgrow the clothes, I’ve seen our guests bring the clothes back. And they’re so joyful when they can give back – what a treat to be able to use something and then give back for somebody else to use. They walk taller that day,” Marianne said. A combination of circumstances led Marianne and Bev to invest their time in the food pantry. Both were inspired during a Bible study called “Crazy Love.” Then there was a mission trip Marianne was a part of in Guatemala: “We ate beans and rice, and rice and beans. After a couple of days, I was tired of it and at lunchtime I thought it would nice to have something other than rice and beans. After lunch, our group headed down the road to work on a house we were building. I’d forgotten my camera and I went back to get it. A little boy, probably four years old, had been playing near us with a deflated soccer ball while we ate. When I came around the corner, there he was studiously picking up every grain of rice we had spilt. It wrecked me. That’s what got me here today. I knew I was called to serve the poor.”

Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. ~ From the second chapter of James ~

hopefoodpantry.weebly.com Making the most of her time … a little girls reads a book while her mom picks up clothing and housewares at Hope Food Pantry. 24

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712-540-9351 hopepantry@gmail.com

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FINANCIAL FOCUS

FARMING: HOW DO I GET MY START?

By Troy Broers, Vice President at American State Bank

NOT A NEW QUESTION American agriculture is always in a state of change – consider ingenuities such as the combine, round baler and Roundup Ready/GMO hybrids. AI/embryo transfer/sexed semen, the wide use of GPS, and advances in artificial intelligence will continue to propel efficiencies in U.S. food production. The specialization and intensity within production agriculture is not unique. However, with farming’s many producers, transparency in production techniques, openly-known cost structure, and a market of “price-takers”, competitive profit margins are the norm. Looking back, in 1936 the average national corn yield was 36 bushels, according to USDA. The yield figure didn’t break 100 bushels until the early 1960s. The average American spends less than 11 percent of their income on food. Since 1990, the producer’s portion of the food dollar has averaged between 14 to 16 cents. This equates to 85 percent of the U.S. average food dollar being attributed to the marketing of the products (transportation, packaging, processing, wholesaler, retail, and food service/restaurants). Land purchase values rarely project a positive profit margin on the forthcoming harvest without a large capital investment or other equity. This “blue sky” 26

The Farming Families Magazine | www.agemedia.pub | June 2022

valuation of land has long been a major hurdle to entry in the industry. To counterbalance this, we continue to see approximately two-thirds of farmland owned being rented to the producer/operator. This too is not new to the industry and is a reason for land, or its rent, commonly seeming “too expensive.” We are blessed to live in Northwest Iowa where our ancestors gravitated to animal husbandry as they settled. They were agriculturalists who chose to stay with the care and feeding of livestock as a complement to the land farmed. The value of livestock production is reflected in statistics from USDA – the total revenue of agricultural production in Northwest Iowa counties is four to seven times the average Iowa county. Iowa itself has the second largest agricultural production value behind only California, which is amazing consider that state’s extended growing season and warmer climate, multi-crops of fruits and vegetables, vineyards, tree nuts and dairy located by large populations. Sioux County is currently the only county in the corn belt to exceed $1.7 billion in agricultural production income. Not only does this allow us to increase the value of our grain production to the higher value of food protein, it also gives opportunity to use time and skills in a more widely open agricultural landscape.

STEPS TO GETTING YOUR START 1. Use life experiences and your current employment to continually direct your future in the large arena of agriculture. Focus on what naturally draws your interest, gaining education and work experience. Use every opportunity to feel out different areas that will better your position if you become a producer – because a person naturally tends to excel in an area of interest, benefiting employers and yourself if farming becomes your future. 2. Align yourself with people in the industry. The saying “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is still key in agriculture because of the capital intensity. Look for opportunities to rent, readying yourself to develop and solidify the tenant/landlord relationship. If the land owner was once a producer or has ties to the piece of land, there is a heightened value in being transparent with the owner. There is more to a lease than rental price; if you can openly show and discuss the practices you use in farming the land, (soil test and nutrient application) and the outcomes, (yield map results verses farm practices, and potential tiling or lime programs) you will gain more than a landlord. 3. Compare this to a livestock enterprise start. You may have an opportunity to partner on ownership (say, 10-33 percent) on a group of cattle or provide labor to a finishing unit. This situation gives you entry and opportunity to prove and leverage your ability to feed and care for livestock. The partnership also benefits from your skin in the game as you prove your ability in the cattle group’s outcome. In livestock facilities, you may have an opportunity to try an enterprise, which can be beneficial before buying or building your own. There is wealth of value when you experience a variety of livestock set-ups. This knowledge is extremely hard to duplicate on your own dime. Partnering in livestock feeding can also grow into an owner’s comfort to rent or purchase their livestock improvements. I have seen this turn into a long-term opportunity to rent ground. 4. When you do start buying farm assets, focus on investing in an asset(s) that turns its value relatively quickly. Just as importantly, invest in an asset that uses your best skills to leverage its use. Consider equipment or improvements that will be used “early and often” in order to get the original value back after trading it for the next asset. (Purchase cost of asset minus salvage/trade value) divided by (total of the future stream, of each year’s net incomes (revenue minus expenses)) equal the assets turnover rate. Shoot for the lower range of the “assets turnover rate.” Repeat this step every time you approach acquiring the next asset. The faster the assets accumulate excess cash, the faster you’ll have

equity for growth and advance to the next step. 5. Use opportunities to bounce ideas off others in the industry. There’s a wealth of knowledge available from veteran producers who usually love talking farm. Mistakes are a memorable way to learn. However, there is less need for you to make each mistake when you can ask thoughtful questions of experienced people to reduce unnecessary consequences. These long-term relationships can continue as great tools in sorting through options and plans you are entertaining. 6. A commodity broker can increase your chances of success by more fully diversifying your marketing strategies. Incremental cash sales, forward contract, hedges and options are tools to advance average price outcomes and offset risk. 7. Remember to talk to a lender. Farming takes a partnership, assets are often in need of financing, and the proper terms and life of the loan is key to a plan’s success. There are several loan programs for the beginning farmer and a lower capitalized projects to be made available. Growing together with a bank in the early development of your farm’s business ownership can benefit your dreams now, and goals long into the future.

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FUN ON THE FARM

‘IF A FARMER GETS A PICKUP’ by Bob Fitch

Lee Friesen, a farmer near Olivet, S.D., keeps his entrepreneurial and eclectic mind occupied with everything from sheep, cattle and the corn crop to analyzing crop insurance models to designing toys and a wheelchairaccessible tractor cab to writing comic panels with little life lessons to authoring a children’s book. The children’s book is called If A Farmer Gets A Pickup and is modeled on circular tales such as the awardwinning childhood favorite If You Give a Mouse A Cookie. Lee wrote the book based on his own life-long experiences in farming. “Always on the farm, you want one thing. When you finally get it, there’s always something else you need as a result of getting the first thing. When you buy a new disc, you discover your current tractor isn’t quite big enough. So you have to get a bigger tractor. When you get the bigger tractor, you might have to build a bigger shed to put it in.” The story includes a little bit of silliness and a little bit of education for youngsters. “I routinely get letters from people who thoroughly enjoyed the book,” Lee said. “One gentleman came up to me and said ‘Your book has caused me a lot of trouble. Every morning and every afternoon, my daughter runs up with the book and we’ve got to look at every page until we find that rubber chicken.’” Customers often order the book as a gift for a grandchild – only to find they want to keep a copy and thus buy a second one to give as a gift. There are a couple extra pages at the end of the book where adults and children are encouraged to write their own story. Lee said, “I firmly believe that every person has a book or a story within them. Whether it’s of interest to one person or thousands, stories need to be told. If you’ve got a story, write it down. Even if you never meet them, your story might be one your great-grandchildren will appreciate down the line.” Lee is a former ag education instructor, a farm toy developer and inventor. He and his son, Seth, are developing a wheelchair-accessible tractor cab and related ancillary items such as PTO, hydraulics and a wagon hitch which a farmer will be able to hook up from the cab. On top of all that, he works full-time as the delivery manager for research and development at AgriSompo North America. If A Farmer Gets A Pickup can be ordered at www.ifafarmergetsapickup.com. This story was originally published in The Farming Families of Hutchinson County. 28

The Farming Families Magazine | www.agemedia.pub | June 2022

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KEEPING LOCAL HISTORY ALIVE

Leaders of the Ku Klux Klan in northwest Iowa in the 1920s. Photo courtesy Sheldon Prairie Museum.

‘HANGOVER OF HATE’

THE RAPID RISE AND FALL OF THE KKK IN NW IOWA

The local women’s auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan in northwest Iowa in the 1920s. Photo courtesy Sheldon Prairie Museum.

The history of the world, our country, our state and even our local community is not always a pleasant story. Good or bad, the tales need to be told. Northwest Iowa was not immune to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan which surged across the northern part of the United States in the 1920s. In fact, some local newspapers seemed to report KKK meetings as simple matters of information: The district organizer of the Ku Klux Klan held a meeting in Boyden last Thursday. It is claimed that the Klan is growing rapidly, and that its membership will probably reach 10 or 12 million within a year. Over 100 robed Knights of the Ku Klux Klan attended services at the Methodist church in Sheldon on last Sunday evening. They presented that church with a large and expensive Bible.

~ Boyden Reporter, April 3, 1924

Ku Klux Klan Lecture Draws a Large Crowd. The opera house was filled to its capacity on Tuesday evening when L.R. Wolf gave his lecture on the organization known as the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. ~ Boyden Reporter, April 10, 1924 30

The Farming Families Magazine | www.agemedia.pub | June 2022

“Paullina reports that indications are that they are soon to have a Ku Klux Klan organization. Copies of a Ku Klux Klan paper were sold on the streets there recently. Various Klan workers have been there at various times trying to establish the organization.” ~ Hawarden Independent, July 17, 1924 The original Ku Klux Klan was organized after the U.S. Civil War as an organization intent on intimidating blacks. The first KKK actually only lasted four or five years. However, in 1915, the movie “The Birth of a Nation” glorified the Klan as a positive force for American values, protection of white women, and the maintenance of white supremacy in the U.S. In the following years, World War I stirred up uber-patriotism and many demanded “100 percent Americanism.” No allegiances to former homelands or a distant pope were to be tolerated. A renewed Ku Klux Klan emerged in the Midwest as a social and political force in the 1920s.

Because anti-black racism was not an adequate motivator in the northern U.S., the Klan of the 1920s targeted Catholics and Jews; and in the western part of the country, Japanese and Mexicans. The Klan said “Our Anglo-Saxon Protestant Christian civilization must be preserved.” The group contended America had been stolen from its rightful citizens, alleging that Catholics and Jews were conspiring to subvert American values, notably through immigration (which was from heavily Catholic nations in eastern and southern Europe at the time). Just as it did in other parts of the U.S., the KKK rose steadily in Iowa in the early 1920s and accelerated into a major movement in 1924. In some areas, the Klan succeeded at influencing local and state elections, including the U.S. Senate race in Iowa. Klan activities were reported This KKK uniform displayed at the Sheldon Prairie Museum belonged to an elementary school teacher who lived in Sheldon. Her father was the imperial wizard, according to museum director Millie Vos. heavily by local newspapers in 1924. Cross burnings were reported at Struble, Hawarden, Sheldon, Hull, Boyden and Rock Valley. The Ireton Ledger implied local support for the Klan in its report about a meeting there in May 1924: “Everyone present seemed well pleased and expressed hearty approval of the big plan adopted in the movement of Americanizing America.” The Ledger went on to publish the full “Klansman’s Creed.” While the creed was steeped in powerful language supporting American values, the Maurice Times was having none of it. The following week, the Maurice editor castigated the Ireton newspaper for publishing the creed and attacked the Klan for its opposition to particular nationalities and religions, noting that “Catholic boys, and Jews and negroes willingly gave their services and lives when America called for them to fight in the great world war. The Klan wishes to Americanize America, but the spirit of America should not be a spirit of class hatred but rather of brotherly love and mutual helpfulness between all races and creeds.”

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Other editors offered rebukes of the KKK and one civic organization made its opinion clear: The Kiwanis Club of Rock Rapids have openly declared that they are opposed to the organization of Ku Klux Klan in their town and at one of the their meetings recently they took a vote which was 46 to 1 against the Klan. The membership of the Kiwanis Club is made up of representatives of all churches, political parties, fraternal organizations and civic and social clubs. It was reported to the club that a Klan organizer was attempting to establish a Klan at Rock Rapids.”

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~ Hawarden Independent, April 3, 1924 June 2022 | www.agemedia.pub | The Farming Families Magazine

Several news reports noted Klan recruiters in the region were from Sheldon. And, in fact, Sheldon hosted the first state meeting of the Ku Klux Klan on June 21, 1924. Millie Vos, director of the Sheldon Prairie Museum, said there were 25,000 people were in attendance at the 1924 Klan gathering.

A news clipping from the August 12, 1925, edition of the Sanborn Pioneer.

Another “Klonklave” was hosted at Sheldon in August 1925 with attendees from northwest Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota. Vos said a minister at First Reformed Church in Sheldon denounced the activities and behavior of the KKK. As a result, a number of people left the church and the most memorable confrontation was the burning of a cross on the church lawn. News reports about the KKK dropped dramatically in 1925 and virtually evaporated in the following years – paralleling the rapid decline of the Klan across the United States in the late 1920s. Membership was estimated to be 4-6 million in the mid-1920s, but had dropped to less than 100,000 by 1930. Some of the most hard-core believers joined pro-Nazi groups. The tide turned against the Ku Klux Klan as it was denounced by newspaper editors and opposed by groups such as the American Legion, Masons, Farm Bureau and NAACP. When the Great Depression hit, people made the decision not to spend their scarce dollars on membership in the Klan. In an exhibit at the Sheldon Prairie Museum, a former Klan member is quoted: “We met in open fields at night, tripping over our robes, sometimes shivering in the cold or rain. It was just a racket, absolutely crooked, that’s all it was. The dues were $24, which included our robe and hood. The whole thing blew up after about a year when the promoter, a tough-looking guy, disappeared with all the money, about $15,000. Everybody felt sheepish. That was the end of it.” The editor of the Sioux Center News bid good riddance to the Klan: What has time done to the Ku Klux Klan? It is a long time since I heard the subject discussed. Every man I remember as connected with that hangover of hate is very shy on the subject. Their memories will treat them with mercy and it won’t be long before time has erased it clean out of their minds … Can you imagine an old man saying to his grandchild, “Come to Grandpa. I will tell you about the time I wore a sheet over my head and went with my Klan to burn a cross at the Catholic Church corner. And that other time we whipped a big nigger.” Such bits do not pass into family lore. ~ Sioux Center News, January 1, 1931 32

The Farming Families Magazine | www.agemedia.pub | June 2022

A KKK Klonklave at the Sheldon fairgrounds on June 1, 1924. Photo courtesy Sheldon Prairie Museum. Sources • Sheldon Prairie Museum • Newspapers.com: Boyden Reporter, Hawarden Independent, Maurice Times, Sioux Center News • www.historiansforpeace.org/ wp-content/uploads/2018/02/ Gordon-Ku-Klux-Klan.pdf • medium.com/iowa-history/the-kuklux-klan-in-iowa-98c945806b45 • www.iowapbs.org/iowapathways/ mypath/story-ku-klux-klanamerica-and-iowa • teachingiowahistory.org/historicalessays/the-ku-klux-klan-in-iowa • en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_ of_a_Nation

A KKK wizard’s medallion at the Sheldon Prairie Museum.

A cross burning near Sheldon in the 1920s. Photo courtesy Sheldon Prairie Museum.

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The Farming Families of Plymouth County (IA)—June 2022

Articles inside

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