Dale Friesen has been making his rounds to all the different Canadian Foodgrains partner communities in Manitoba and northern Ontario. In Manitoba alone, there are about 35 fundraiser projects that include grow projects that equal some 4,000 acres - not to mention community auction sales, concerts and more.
Here in the southwestern corner of the province we are very familiar with the Boissevain-Morton-Whitewater (B.M.W.) Grow Project, and the Killarney Grow Project. Further west is the Waskada fundraising auction and further still is the Cross Border Growing Project at Kola.
For new Manitoba/Ontario Foodgrains rep, Dale Friesen he has been struck by the dedication and generosity of entire communities to support the Foodgrains Bank.
"Especially when you realize that land is expensive, right? And so, you have all these people around the province who are willing to dedicate some of their land or even rent land, and to use that for this," shares Friesen. "There are a lot of overhead costs and people are willing to either foot the bill or do some of the fundraising for it. And so yeah, it's actually quite amazing!"
When looking at 4,000 acres of cropland dedicated to the CFB, Friesen did the math. "When you start mapping that out that 4000 acres, if you think of a square mile being 640 acres, that is a lot of acres.," he says. "And a lot of a lot of food that is being generously donated, essentially with the revenue is being given to people around the world. And it makes me proud to be a Manitoban. It makes me proud to be someone who works at Canadian Foodgrains Bank to know that we want to be generous people. So yeah, it's awesome."
What's been amazing for Friesen is recognizing those communities of unwavering support over many years to continue their fundraising efforts through their own unique projects.
"This has all been really exciting to know that some of these people have been doing this since the 1980s, you know, this is a generational type thing. These people have been willing to give up of their time, their treasure, their talents, whatever kind of language you want to use ... some of these projects have been going since the 1980s. You know it's, it's amazing, right?"
Please listen to more with Dale Friesen below!