In the spring of 2022, the Drumheller Dragons along with a number of partners came together to seed a parcel of land for fundraising for the team.
The farmland, which is next to Dinosaur Trail Golf and Country Club, was seeded to wheat with assistance from Brandt, Westview Co-op, Koch Fuel Products, Fox Coulee Farms, and hail insurance provided through Brokerlink. Brett and Tera Adams also provided additional insurance on the land. Randy Sharpe and Sharpe Trucking provided the trucking to Cargill Equity elevator. Mother Nature did her part and last week (September 1) crews from Brandt brought in the crop. According to Dustin Edwards Director of Sports and Entertainment with Canalta, harvest went smooth on Thursday. “We were able to wrap it all up (Thursday) night around 10 PM. The bright lights of the John Deere equipment kept us going into the evening. It turned out to be an outstanding day in the field and got the crop off successfully.”
The crop was pretty nice for the first year according Edwards. “We got that early rain in June, which was huge for the field. We would have liked to have about 10 less days in the 30’s in the last few weeks. We think it could have been a little better but overall we are very pleased. To get a really nice wheat crop to the elevator is going to provide huge financial assistance to the team.”
Because our community is such rural based, it made sense for the Dragons to try something like this as a fundraiser. “We’re a farming community,” shares Edwards. “Our sponsor base is made up of a lot of agricultural supported businesses, Our season ticket holders are farmers, so it’s really important. Thursday, all the players got an opportunity to go through the machinery and equipment and learn about the combine with Brandt head of training. They were all super engaged and a lot of them never had that opportunity.”
It looks like they were able to haul approximately two and a half semi loads of wheat to the elevator which worked out to be about 4,000 bushels according to Edwards. The result was a cheque for $50,000 from Cargill along with an additional $2000 from the Brett Adams Family!
Today, the project still lives on with all the same partners involved as year one! In 2023, despite a very dry year, the Dragons grew a canola crop with seed provided by Rivett Seeds. With some help from drought insurance the team raised over $62,000! In the spring of 2024, the Dragons seeded the Field of Dreams back to wheat supplied by Richardson Pioneer. The team is hoping for a nice summer with hopefully more rain!
We can’t thank our community partners enough for their continued support in this project! It truly is one of the most unique fundraisers in all of junior hockey and a true reflection of our community and our team!
