The first Western Canada Harvest Heritage Festival took place at Austin's Manitoba Ag Museum on August 25th. It's a joint fundraising event for the Canadian Foodgrains Bank and the Manitoba Agricultural Museum. Harvest Secretary Elliot Sims shares the results.

"We were quite happy that we had 300 visitors and 100 volunteers come out to experience harvesting in the way it used to happen across the prairies," explains Sims. "We had threshing machines going, and combines form the 20's, 50's and 60's. At the end of the day, we were able to harvest our 65-acre wheat field, which yields about 4,100 bushels."

Sims says they were thrilled with the response from volunteers, visitors and everyday Manitobans who were part of it. He adds hunger is a problem in the world they need to assist in ending. At the same time, Sims notes, they're preserving agricultural heritage. He says hundreds of people believe a perfect plan would be to merge the two causes. This would see them help end global hunger by celebrating agricultural heritage.

He explains the project raises a crop along with complimentary events to raise money for the Canadian Foodgrains Bank and the Ag Museum. The project saw an increase of 10 percent compared to last year. Sims says cheques are being given to both the Museum and Foodgrains Bank, each for $11,000.

Sims notes matching funds programs from the federal and provincial governments stretch the dollars even further, taking the $11000 for the foodgrains bank and making it $55,000. He says this will feed 3,600 people for a month.

As far as the Museum goes, they'll use their money as an initial contribution toward their heritage trust program. Sims explains it's a partnership with the province to create a permanent endowment fund with the local community foundation to support museum operations. The province will match the funds at a 2/1 ratio for every dollar invested by the museum. This means $22,000 raised by the Heritage Harvest Festival this year will turn into $71,500 for actual support for the foodgrains bank and the museum.

Sims adds even before it was over, people asked when it would happen again. So, cereal crops will be planted every year due to crop rotations. He notes when they're planted, the Museum will again host the Heritage Harvest Festival and get the machines out to show how farmers used to harvest. Sims says they're already looking ahead to August 2020 when they host the second Western Canada Harvest Heritage Festival.