It was another packed, um, loading bay at the recent Vauxhall & District Growing Project annual pig roast.
The event — now in its ninth year — draws about 400 local residents and so just about every inch of the 7,200-square-foot loading area of Jan and Ida Bennen’s potato storage warehouse is needed.
“We have enough room for tables and chairs for 350 to 400 people,” said Jan. “We had a nice crowd again this year and everybody was able to sit down.”
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Because of food safety regulations, the couple’s two warehouses (this year’s event was in the newer one) are spotless and there’s also plenty of room for parking on their farm, located four miles north of town.
The pig roast is a make-a-donation affair, but nevertheless accounts for about a quarter of the $100,000 the growing project raises for the Canadian Foodgrains Bank each year. The rest comes from a quarter section of grain — barley this year — grown by project members.
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But the fundraising dinner has another purpose, said Jan.
“We started the growing project 11 years ago, but after a couple of years, we asked, ‘How can we get more of our community involved?’” he said.
“We wanted the town to be part of it, not just those with big tractors.”
And that’s just what has happened, added Arlene Parkinson, one of the main organizers of the dinner.
“We want the town people to be involved so they would better understand what this project is all about and what the Foodgrains Bank is all about,” she said.
Many residents of Vauxhall and surrounding towns also come out for the lunch held on harvest day, and bring homemade baking.
“The big hit at the lunch is the homemade pies,” she said.
The dinner dates back to 2005 when the Bennens were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary and were hosting the party in their potato warehouse.
“We had it all cleaned up and thought, ‘Why not have a pig roast there?’” said Jan. “So we had the first one a couple of weeks after.”
That first one was a one-pig affair but the dinner became so popular, it wasn’t long before two whole pigs had to be roasted.
Virtually every penny raised goes directly into CFG projects (122 in 37 countries in 2012-13) and is leveraged twice. The federal government matches every dollar raised on a four-to-one basis, and the agency further leverages the funds through ‘work for food’ projects, which are chosen by local residents to advance their communities.
The Bennens wanted to see some of those projects for themselves and so they visited Zimbabwe and Malawi in 2007. They came away deeply moved by the people they met, said Jan. People who live “on the blessed side of the world” need to help out as they can, he said.
“We have seen the poor side of the world, but we have also seen the riches they have in their community and in their faith,” he said.
