Despite less-than-ideal conditions on Wednesday, the usual crew of volunteer farmers gathered on a field donated by the Giesbrecht family about 4 miles East of Rosenfeld to harvest 300 acres of Canola in support of Canadian Foodgrains Bank and MCC. Wet conditions Organizer Kevin Nickel took a moment to share his concerns about the less-than-ideal conditions, "We have got a beautiful day and conditions are on the wet side so we are a little bit nervous being out here with these trucks on the field. Often when conditions are like this people load trucks on the road but our situation here isn't conducive to that today so L.E.T donated a load of shale to us this morning so we've got a bit of a base for our trucks to drive on and hopefully that'll be alright. Yesterday when I was opening things up here, you can tell it's soft and it's moist, but I wasn't spinning. So we hope we don't find too many surprises. And I think we have a decent crop here as well." The operation Kevin also broke down how the harvest was going to work, "So we've got 300 acres of canola, we've got seven combines and three carts and I don't even know how many trucks. We've got a bunch of trucks here, we've got trucks on call, we're taking it to Bunge and we're not not sure how quick the turnaround time is gonna be over there. So we've also got an auger set up at a bin on our yard just in case we need to fill the gaps that way. So we're hoping for good flow." Nearing the million-dollar mark Kevin touched on the money raised over the years and how close they are to the million-dollar milestone, "We didn't quite get there last year. We are hoping that with a decent crop here today, just might reach that milestone. So we started in 2010 and have been donating anywhere from $50,000 to $120,000 is probably the range per year that we've been donating. Obviously, some years are thinner than others, but it has been an expensive field this year. Canola is an expensive crop to grow, and the commodity prices have also not been great lately. So those are two kind of things that squeeze our margin, but here's hoping that we get there." In God's hands Darrell Stoesz has been part of the Common Ground grow project for many years and this year his contribution was trucking the canola from the field to Bunge in Altona, he gave a comment on why he comes to support a project like this year after year, "Well, we do a lot of stuff for ourselves every day and so it's nice to do something for other people and it's just good camaraderie, good connection with other people, it's part of a social thing too, but you know, we're called to help those in need and we have more than we're blessed with a lot of stuff. So I think we need to have a thank you for the Giesbrecht family that gives us a good deal on this land every year that we can afford and make some money out of it. Every year this field seems to have some sort of issue and we're going well. I guess it's in God's hands because we can't do anything. On a day like this, it still comes down to a lot of the feet on the ground. And we got a good crew here today that we're going to get it done. And it's going to be an awesome day." CFAM host Zack Driedger was boots on the ground at the 2025 Common Ground harvest, enjoy his conversation with local farmer Darrell Stoesz and Common Ground harvest organizer Kevin Nickel below: