Farmers Harvest Crops For Neighbor With COVID

A group of Wisconsin farmers come together to harvest the crops for their neighbor while he recovers from being hospitalized with COVID. When Dave Obbink caught COVID last year, it was soon obvious that he was going to need to go to the hospital. And while he was recovering in the hospital, the work wasn’t getting done on his family’s Sheboygan County farm and they had crops that needed to be harvested.

When Obbink’s neighbors heard about his situation, a few of them got together to help out their friend and neighbor. None of them will admit to whose idea it was, but 17 farmers put their own work aside and descended on the Obbink’s farm to help harvest their soybeans and corn. With seven combines and dozens of grain carts operated by more than 50 volunteers, they managed to harvest around 200 acres in a day. The sight of all those farmers working together ended up bringing in more than a couple of spectators, too.

Obbink, fresh home from the hospital, sat at his home recovering and watching his neighbors bring in the corn. "I just sat there on the couch, sitting on the arm of the couch looking, and the tears were just running down my face. I said, ‘I can't believe these guys would do this,’" he recalls. But his neighbors know Obbink would do it for them and that’s just how their community operates. And one of Obbink’s neighbors, Jeff DeRuyter, says they enjoyed doing it, too. "It was a lot of fun to be able to get together with everybody and work that way together,” he says. “And it makes a guy feel good that we can help someone out who needs it.”

Source: CBS 58


Sponsored Content

Sponsored Content