Jennifer Webster:
Earlier this summer, we had a memorial picnic in honor of my dad. We had a handful of mental health speakers come in. We actually partner with Western Wisconsin Health in Baldwin — they have a great mental health care team, and they are also a rural hospital. We've partnered with them on a variety of events to educate their staff on maybe what to experience, or, like, what to expect when a farmer walks in and says, "Hey, I'm struggling with this, this and this," and understanding the unique stressors in the farming community. One other thing we do is we do what I call random acts of kindness. So, we give gift cards to farmers, where, especially if you're a dairy farmer, going out for dinner with your family can be really challenging. Also, there's a financial component to that — we've given out gift cards so people can go out to dinner, put gas in their car, what have you. We've also done gift bags for farmers around the holidays. And then one of my favorite things that we do is harvest meals. So we put, like, a sandwich and a fruit and chips and water in a bag, and we put some Farmer Angel Network goodies in there, and we distribute it to farmers. So we've done, this is our second year doing it. And so we've worked with a couple different FFA chapters in our community, to partner with them and making sure that farmers are getting meals, 'cause during harvest season, it's really hard to slow down and stop and eat for a meal.

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If you notice you're in a rural community and farmer Joe Schmoe's not showing up at church and he's usually a regular churchgoer, stop and ask. Stop and ask those hard questions. Ask, "Hey, what's going on? I've noticed you haven't been going to church. Is there, like, what's going on, are you busy?" Or, "What's going on?" Or same thing if you're on a community board and, you know, they just seem off, start asking those questions like, "Like, what's going on? You know, feel free to talk to me." Just check in with people. It's really easy in today's society to just text and be on social media, which makes the world a little bit more isolated, and farmers feel the brunt of that. Not very many people stop and visit a farm anymore just because, you know, everybody's busy and we live in a very fast-paced society. But when farmers are already working in an isolated community, they feel that more deeply. It could be, I mean, farmers see their animals more than they do people a lot of the time, and I think a lot of people, I think a lot of people miss that opportunity.