Volunteers and students from Elizabeth Middle School and Luseland School are shown in a group photo on Sept. 18 at the annual Harvest Day hosted by members of the Prairie West Growing Project committee with help from a long list of sponsors.
Kenneth Brown
of The Clarion
Committee members for the Prairie West Growing Project are continuing to provide an annual educational opportunity to Grade 7 students in the area.
The Prairie West Growing Project supports the Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFB) and the committee responsible for the growing project has been holding an event known as Harvest Day since 2013. Harvest Day was held on Sept. 18 at the Pattison Agriculture Limited compound east of Kindersley.
When the event started in 2013, only Grade 7 students from Westberry School were in attendance. The event grew to include all Grade 7 students in Kindersley, and Harvest Day has since grown to include students from other schools.
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This year’s event included students from Elizabeth Middle School and Luseland School. The Harvest Day was held at the farm of Don and Linda Lafleur farm northwest of Kindersley at the start before moving to the compound at Moody’s Equipment. It is the first time it was at Pattison Agriculture.
Each year with the exception of 2018, a field of crops is grown at the Lafleur farm and proceeds from the harvest go to support the CFB and its 15 partners consisting of both churches and church organizations. The goal of the CFB is to help end global hunger.
Students attending the Harvest Day are split into groups, and they rotate through various educational sessions. Agronomists at G-Mac’s AgTeam have always helped, and they were back in 2018. The agronomists led a session on plant and weed identification, and another on seeds and grocery association.
Staff at Pattison Agriculture ran two sessions that focused on farm machinery – one for combines and one for sprayers. Saskatchewan Agriculture also helped at the event, and the staff led a session that focused largely on farm safety.
Rick Block, the Saskatchewan co-ordinator for the CFB, was on hand for the event and he led the sixth session. Block educated students on global hunger and food security. The students enjoyed a barbecue lunch at Harvest Day.
Eric Friesen, chairperson for the growing project committee, said the Harvest Day went well and organizers are pleased with the new location. He said the committee would like to thank Moody’s Equipment for hosting the event for the past three years. The committee extends its thanks to Pattison Agriculture for being the new host.
He noted that organizers are starting to get in a groove with the annual event. The committee and its volunteers have held the event enough times to know what works, so organizers have only needed to make minor adjustments, he said.
According to Friesen, local students are becoming familiar with Harvest Day and they are excited to attend the event in Grade 7. He said students were split into six smaller groups and organizers have found that smaller groups work better for the sessions.
He noted that Ann Dies of Saskatchewan Agriculture went to great lengths for the farm safety session. He said she made 12 replica brains using Jello to explain the impact of trauma to the brain. Common containers such as drink bottles could be used on farms for liquids that look like Gatorade such as Round Up, so the farm safety session also helped to teach kids to avoid drinking the unknown liquids.
“It was a really good day,” Friesen said, recognizing that the event has excellent sponsors and their contributions help to give organizers the peace of mind to focus other details of the day. “I think the kids really enjoyed it.”
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