Worst fears
Happy holidays
Shippers say their concerns are coming true » PG 19
We’ll return with the Jan. 4, 2018 issue
SERVING MANITOBA FARMERS SINCE 1925 | Vol. 75, No. 51 | $1.75
December 21, 2017
Commodity groups release merger report The next step is garnering enough support amongst the rank-and-file members
manitobacooperator.ca
Blessings from bargains Sales of donated items at the MCC Thrift Shop in Carman this year generate $240,000 for Mennonite Central Committee’s international relief, development and peace work
BY ALLAN DAWSON Co-operator staff
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ive Manitoba crop commodity groups have released a report detailing their plan to create one overarching association. The Dec. 14 report is full of details on how they will form one association by Aug. 1, 2019 — if members approve it at their annual meetings in February 2019. But right now the Manitoba Wheat and Barley Growers, Manitoba Flax Growers, the National Sunflower Association of Canada and Manitoba Corn Growers and Manitoba Pulse & Soybean Growers want their respective 8,000 members to respond to the proposal via email (rob@mbcrops.ca) or by contacting association directors. They also want farmers to attend presentations in January and to provide input during their annual meetings February 14 and 15 at the CropConnect meeting in Winnipeg. “Commodity groups need to be farmer driven,” Manitoba Corn Growers Association president Myron Krahn said in a news release. “This
It takes many pairs of hands to keep the bustling Carman MCC Thrift Shop operating. The non-profit enterprise’s success is due as much from generous time put in by volunteers as the plentiful donations and customers supporting it, says the organization’s president Frank Elias (front right). PHOTO: LORRAINE STEVENSON
See merger on page 6 »
BY LORRAINE STEVENSON Co-operator staff/Carman
Publication Mail Agreement 40069240
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tella Wiebe has cut up about 4,000 pairs of blue jeans for quilt blocks over the years. But that’s certainly not the only thing she’s done during her long stint volunteering with Carman Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Thrift Shop. She’s been volunteering with the non-profit enterprise since its start, and today is still among its 100 others arranging, sorting, folding, fixing, cleaning and pricing thousands of donated items that keep this thrift shop thriving. The eagerness of customers streaming through its doors each day is matched only by the generous time given by volunteers to keep the store shipshape,
and raising mountains of money for Mennonite Central Committee’s international work. In 2017 sales of donated clothing, furniture, household items have raised $386,288 — the most money it’s ever generated. After expenses are paid, and a portion of the funds turned over to local causes, that’s $240,000 for MCC’s international work. They are rather pleased, in a modest sort of way, about it. “There are stores that are bigger than ours and they make more money than we do,” said Frank Elias, a retired school principal and current president for the organization. Places like Winkler and Steinbach occupy space several times larger than Carman’s. There are 16 MCC Thrift Stores in Manitoba.
“But in our 5,000 sq. feet we generate about $65 to $70 per square foot,” he said. “There’s no store in Manitoba that matches us for performance.” Those sales now add up to about $1,500 for every day the store is open. Not too shabby for a shop that had a humble start in a basement. It was 1975 when a few feisty local church women, inspired by the newly opened and original MCC Thrift Shop in Altona, decided to try selling donated goods here too. Anna Penner, who has also volunteered since its beginning, remembers the early days. They’d price everything in the basement under a single bare light bulb, hung from a ceiling so low some bumped their heads on it. See MCC Thrift Shop on page 7 »
BECAUSE I LOVE YOU: PREPARING FOR THE WORST » PAGE 25