Approximately 200 people attended Tuesday's Killarney Foodgrains harvest just north of town on the 300-acre field of red spring wheat!

Ten harvesters came together to clean off the field, as well as about a dozen in total of grain carts, semi-trucks and trailers. The day started out rather grey between fog, smoke and dust in the air but by the time the combines got rolling the sun came out!

"It's just so nice to share this with everybody and my heart gets full just thinking about the day, how it turned out," shares Betty Turner, secretary-treasurer for the Killarney grow project.  "But we couldn't do this without our community, and our community means everybody, you and me and families and farmers and businesspeople, and our community overseas that we're helping."

"It's a miracle every time," she adds, "because really, we can plan for this day, but it doesn't all come together until this day.  And it always happens, and it was really amazing!"

Grain producer, Mitch Dyck, rented the 300-acre land from Myron Peters (local Foodgrains committee field manager and logistics manager on the quad) with the Killarney committee renting 100 of those acres for their project.  Dyck has been tending to the entire crop's needs throughout the growing season, with the intention of dividing the entire yield into thirds, with 1/3 of the total yield generously being the Foodgrain's portion.  As there was very little rain on this field, there were some light areas, and Dyck felt this was the best way to share the crop.

There were a few empty chairs at this year's harvest celebration, one being a passionate advocate for the Killarney project, Lloyd Jersak. Each year's tradition was for Lloyd to play his tuba (often a hymn) to start the harvest. None of us thought that 2022 would be the 85-year-old saint's last year to blow his horn for the official start to the rolling of the combines!  He lost his battle to cancer earlier this spring, in May.   However, many believe Lloyd was smiling from above as Killarney resident, Adrian Kroeker, brought out her shofar, a ram's horn purchased during a family trip to Israel.

Kroeker blew the shofar loud and clear to herald in the start to the harvest procession for all to hear! And it almost seemed like that was when the sun finally broke through the clouds and shone upon the field and all the participants of the day, to herald in the celebration!

"It is a true celebration," shares Betty Turner, "and that's why we want to share it with as many people as we can to come and share it with us, because it's the celebration of the harvest.  It's what our goal is; to try and help as many people as we can. We do thank everybody for helping us achieve our goal."

Please listen to more with Betty Turner below!

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