Farm Rescue, a nonprofit organization that helps farm families experiencing illness, injury, or natural disaster, kicked off 2023 by adding Illinois to its service footprint.
Since spreading its reach into Illinois, the organization completed its 1,000th assistance case with a family in Crawford County. Jim Rose is a volunteer for Farm Rescue from the Quad Cities.
“One of the first things we did in Illinois was from the tornadoes that went through Crawford County and Wayne County. We had families down there who lost all their equipment at planting time that Farm Rescue was able to mobilize- bring in their tractors, planters, and volunteers and get the crops planted for these folks while they were dealing with those disasters,” said Rose. “We have done 5-6 cases in Illinois.”
Rose began volunteering with Farm Rescue in 2019 when he was asked to help combine barley for a family south of Minot, North Dakota. While he hasn’t been able to volunteer much over the last three years, Rose hopes to get more involved now that he is retired.
“If you have the ability to operate machinery and if you have some time.. even if you font have some time, try to make some time because that feeling of helping folks is unbelievable.”
To volunteer or nominate someone for assistance visit farmrescue.org.
You can listen to the full interview with Jim Rose here.