Canton couple to make second, third trips to Nebraska with donated hay
David and Bri Beechy of Canton Township arrived in Nebraska with a trailer full of hay, which they donated to a livestock market that will distribute it to flooded farms in need.
Photo courtesy of David Beechy
David and Bri Beechy of Canton Township arrived in Nebraska with a trailer full of hay, which they donated to a livestock market that will distribute it to flooded farms in need.
David and Bri Beechy and their 9-month-old, Magdalena
It’s one trip down, thousands of miles to go for the Beechy family, of Canton Township, who have made it their mission to transport loads of donated hay to flooded farms in Nebraska.
David and Bri Beechy, and their 9-month-old Magdalena, successfully drove their first truckload of hay 900 miles to Verdigre, a small town of about 600 people in Knox County, Nebraska, where extensive flooding has devastated many farms.
“In all honesty, on us, it’s been personally and financially pretty stressful,” David said. “But when you get out there and you see the relief and excitement on their faces when they see the hay, then it’s totally worth it. You feel like your little stress is nothing.”
Their kindness was contagious, igniting hearts across the county as donations started pouring in to help. The couple’s GoFundMe account has raised over $1,200, which they plan to use for travel costs and additions supplies for farmers in need. They also received more hay donations, and have had people reach out to fill their gas tank.
He even had a farmer in Scranton offer to donate 400 bales of hay.
“There’s no way I can handle that amount,” David said. “I had to turn that over to a crew in Michigan that’s trying to put stuff together to send out there.”
According to the Associated Press, melting snow and rain caused flooding earlier this month in Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and parts of South Dakota. The worst of it has been reported in Nebraska, where hundreds of residents have been displaced and many farms were underwater.
The Beechy family, who are beef cattle farmers, left Saturday night with 14 round bales of their own hay to donate. They arrived around 8 p.m. Sunday at the Verdigre Livestock Market, where Hannah Sucha and her parents, Curt and Sherri Zimmerer, are running a flooding relief effort.
They started out as a hay drive for one farmer who had lost all of his feed for 400 cattle.
“We started helping one family and now we’re helping 15 to 20 families with a total of well over 1000 cattle,” Sucha said.
The drive started out with just local people sending dontations, but they soon started receiving countrywide donations, from people with mostly farming backgrounds and a desire to help a fellow farmer, she said. They’re up to about 750 bales of donated hay so far.
“I’ve learned a lot this past week,” Sucha said. “Everybody who’s donating has the same heart.”
David said that after they unloaded the hay Sunday evening, they drove down to Omaha to stay with Bri’s family.
“We ran into a bunch of road closures on our way,” David said. “A lot of bridges and culverts were washed out. In some areas, so many roads were closed that they ran out of road closure signs. They had to use metal stakes painted orange to make sure people knew the road was closed.”
David said they saw fields washed out and covered in sand and lots of property damage. He also said ice that came in from the lakes “wiped out miles of fencing.” He said many of their local stores are out of fencing supplies.
“They’re in desperate need for fencing supplies,” David said. “If people are willing to donate fencing or if we can collect enough money to go buy some fencing supplies, we’ll take that out there too.”
Sucha said they’ve had about 10 to 15 miles of fencing be donated so far, but they need 200 miles.
“We’ve got a long way to go,” she said. “The farmers are so grateful. They don’t expect anything, and when you bring them something, they just light up.”
David and his family arrived back in Washington County Wednesday, and they plan to leave for their second trip Saturday morning. They’ll take a second load of hay, donated by a farmer in Ohio, to the Verdigre Livestock Market. He said that since a third load of hay has been donated from Ohio, they plan to make a third trip as well.
David said two people in the Canton, Ohio area reached out to him, wanting to join him on the second trip. He said the two men gathered up donated hay in Ohio and want to follow David out to Nebraska to donate the hay. Like David, those drivers will also use a pickup truck and trailer to haul the hay.
“We have these two guys following us out that we’ve never met before,” David said. “I’ve never seen anything like the farm community.”
People can donated to the couple’s cause at www.gofundme.com/hay-for-nebraska-flood-relief. Anyone interested in donating hay or other farming supplies can reach David by email, at david.rrhauling@gmail.com.