Thank you!

A big “thank you” to all who came to our Saturday night fundraiser on April 26th; we had a standing room only crowd.  A big thank you to all who generously donated over $3,000 to get our combine on its way to Africa!   Another big “thank you” to all the volunteers who pitched in to get this done…many hands make light work, as my mother used to say.  A final big “thank you” to the performers who entertained us and made it a fun evening.  I think I heard someone say… “we should do this more often”…well, maybe.

A great surprise was the appearance of the founder of Cheetah Development, Ray Menard, a little over half way through the program.  He was coming directly from the end of a two day conference on Cheetah Development… with interested parties from all over the country.  We really didn’t expect him to be able to make it.  He brought an urgent message on how this combine will help to reduce the 20-30% losses from the “beating with a stick” traditional method plus it will relieve the women of each village the tremendous extra work of shelling corn in this way.  You see, in Africa, shelling corn (as well as grinding and cooking it) is “women’s work”, so this will have a huge impact on the women in the villages. Just think, when you go from 8 bags per acre to 30+ in one year, when joining the cooperative, and getting a loan for hybrid seed and nitrogen fertilizer, how much more work there is in the shelling!  Our modified combine will zip this corn through in no time, eliminating the losses, and the women will have more time for their children and household work…

Another big “thank you” goes out to Steve Strehlow and his team at SJS Farms, Inc.  These guys have done an amazing job converting the combine to a mobile corn sheller and cleaner.  Most of you will have seen the results of Steve and his team in fabricating the hopper just inside the entrance to the church.  Their work on the combine itself is almost done and we are close to being ready to ship it off to Africa!  Please check our Facebook page and website for pictures and updates on our progress.  And please, if you have not already donated, consider giving these farmers…so many of them women…a helping hand by donating to Harvesters of Hope.

We started out with a goal of $19,000 to buy, ship with spare parts, and reassemble the combine to Iringa in Tanzania.  We have raised about $13,000 so far and are still $6,000 short of our goal, so we still need your help!  This is going to make a huge difference in people’s lives, especially the women.  Let’s make it happen!