By ANN ALLEN
Indiana Correspondent

SOUTH WHITLEY, Ind. — “This isn’t an Amish thing and it’s not English,” Jim Eberhart said. “This is a red-blooded American community pulling together.”

And pull together they did when Rachel Yoder, 10-year-old daughter of Amos and Amanda Yoder was diagnosed with a brain tumor and sent to Riley Hospital for Children before going to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.

Ties between the English and Amish in this Whitley County area are strong.

“They’re getting stronger every year,” Eberhart said. “We are family.”

Working together, Eberhart, Marcus Schwartz, Tobie Graber and auctioneer Jim Bayman organized the June 22 benefit that drew more than 2,000 people to Joe and Betty Graber’s farm for a meal of whole hog sausage, barbeque chicken, haystacks (concoctions similar to taco salads), homemade pies, cakes and 110 gallons of ice cream.

With buggies and cars vying for parking space and members of the Cleveland Twp. Fire Department directing traffic, the area looked like a circus with a variety of tents, the largest covering the Grabers’ concrete basketball court to create a huge dining and serving area. Other tents housed ice cream and baked goods.
A dunk tank proved a hit with both the English and Amish as did the raffles - a Haflinger horse, a collection of guns, a grill - and an auction.

The auction featured handmade quilts, hay, six hours of excavating work, a truckload of gravel, horse training sessions and a variety of other donations. A day of fishing, complete with buggy rides and dinner for 15 in an Amish home brought $1,000.

“We operated strictly on the honor system,” Eberhart said. “As you bought something, you dropped the money or check into a nearby collection bucket.”

“Working together like this is what we all should do,” said an English man who had brought a 15-passenger van full of Amish people to the benefit. “I paid over $800 a year for insurance on my barn for 26 years and then had the policy cancelled because the company didn’t like the roof. Seems to me I’d have been better off without the insurance and worked together with my neighbors if I’d had a problem.”

He and his family own five 15-passenger vans used to transport Amish to area functions.

In addition to the more than 2,000 people served and attending the auction, donations came from as far away as Oregon and Idaho, raising the evening’s total to $60,000.

“Everything was donated,” Eberhart said. “That means the proceeds can all go to help Rachel.”

This farm news was published in the June 27, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee.