Creelman-area farmer Marcel Van Staveren talked about two of the big passions of his life, farming and adopting three of the four children he and wife Kym are raising, as he spoke to the Weyburn Rotary Club at their luncheon meeting on Thursday.
In the area of farming, this was an incredible year for him and his two brothers, Vince and John, plus as an area producer he is excited about an upcoming series of meetings of a possible new development in the southeast area.
The Van Staveren family first immigrated to Canada from the Netherlands in the 1950s, and established themselves in the Creelman area, he explained, noting he was the youngest of a family of five.
Today, the three Van Staveren brothers farm about 17,000 acres as partners, growing grain now after initially being a mixed farm operation.
“We’ve learned through the years we need to mix things up,” said Marcel, noting time to earn a degree in agriculture at the University of Saskatchewan, and is now applying that knowledge to the family’s farm operations.
Of this year’s harvest, Marcel said, “This was a fantastic year, one of the best ever for our crops. Harvest was done by October. If you’re a farmer for any length of time, you’ll see good years and bad years. It’s nice to see that agriculture will be strong for another year.”
With the crops in the bin, he has been busy with a local of farmers and business people, which have put together a proposal for a grain and oil hub in the southeast, under the company name Comtrax Logistics Solutions Inc. The group will hold a series of 10 meetings in the southeast, including in Weyburn on Friday, Dec. 9.
Marcel said the location hasn’t been defined yet, noting it could be built anywhere from Midale up to Milestone, and added, “We’re basing it on a different model than the Weyburn Inland Terminal. … It’s exciting for us and for agriculture.”
Speaking about his family, Marcel said he was married to Kym Oberkirsch in 1998, and they had a son, Alex, who is in Grade 12 this year. Son Nathan was adopted when he was about four, and is now 15, and more recently they adopted a pair of sisters from Ukraine, Oksana and Alina, and explained a bit about the process involved with bringing them into the family.
“The opportunity came up in 2013 to host children from orphanages in Ukraine for the summer,” he said, adding they very much enjoyed hosting them, but it was extremely hard to put them on the plane back to Ukraine at the end of the summer.
The girls were 11 and 13 at the time, and the Van Staverens promised they could come to Ukraine and go through the process of adopting them. In the meantime, they provided them with a cell phone, and they were able to stay in touch with each other through texting. In May of 2014, they were allowed to come to Ukraine to begin the process of adoption.
Marcel’s wife Kym ended up staying in Ukraine for two months to be with the girls and to continue the process of adoption.
While there was unrest ongoing in Ukraine, Marcel noted that Kym never felt threatened or in danger, as she was in a different part of the country than where the violence was occurring.
Finally, the girls were able to be brought to Canada in the summer of 2014. Today, the oldest daughter, Oksana, is in Grade 11 and has just turned 17, while Alina is in Grade 9 along with brother Nathan.
“We’ve been really blessed, it’s been really good,” said Marcel. “They’ve adapted really well. The oldest daughter loves art and dance, and is very artistic.” He noted one of their very good friends have also adopted children from the same orphanage, and they are attending school with the girls.
Rotary member Brenda King said she was substitute teaching and had Oksana in her class, with a number of other immigrants also in the class. She asked for simple recipes from their home countries, and Oksana offered a recipe for borscht, which Brenda has now adopted as her favourite recipe for the soup.
