They reached out to the organizers of a tractor cruise in northwest Missouri for advice, which was freely given. The next step was to plan a route. John’s brother-in-law, John Brueggemann, offered his factory in St. Clair to serve as the launch site. From there the tractors would pass through St. Clair, Union and Washington.
“And the main thing on that route was we wanted to make sure we went by all the retirement homes we could,” John says. “We had a couple people who would call them before we got there so they could get the folks outside. And we would circle around and we’d wave to them. And that was a highlight of their day.”
That first year 67 tractors showed up. Unfortunately, so did the remnants of Hurricane Ike. Overnight strong storms knocked down trees and flooded ditches. By 11 a.m., kickoff for the cruise, it was still pouring. “We had the local pastor give us a blessing of the fleet,” John says. “And that was Father Bob Knight. He crawled up on this 1066 International. And we are all standing in this big warehouse with our tractors. And he started to give us his blessing of the fleet. And he blessed each tractor. And no more than he got done, it went from a full rain to stop. It was pretty emotional.”
From that humble beginning the Journey for Charity has grown larger every year. “The second year, I think we had 82 or 83 tractors,” John says. “Our goal every year was to beat the year before. And every year, it just kept getting more tractors and more food.”
What started with a committee of three and support from Knights of Columbus councils in St. Clair, Union, Washington and Gildehaus, expanded to 18 people and seven councils, now including those at Dutzow, Krakow and New Haven. More food pantries were supported. ATVs were added to pick up donations from those watching the tractors. A road ranger eased drivers through intersections. Mechanics were recruited to fix balky tractors.
In 2018 a new Missouri River bridge opened at Washington. The wider bridge allowed the tractor cruise to expand into two routes, with the new one starting at St. Ignatius of Loyola Catholic Church in Concord Hill and traveling through Marthasville, Dutzow and Augusta before meeting the south route in Washington.
“We were always part of this from across the river,” says Fred, who farms with his brothers near Dutzow. “Once we got the new bridge we had more room to get across the river and not stop traffic.”
All along the two routes people bring out lawn chairs and wait for the drivers to pass. Kids stand in the ditches with bags bulging with food. One family in St. Clair has turned the annual event into a tractor show that has spread to several neighboring homes in a big way.
“A guy there would always have a pyramid of canned goods,” John says. “And every year it would grow. So we asked him, and he says, ‘I save $1 a week. And what I do is I buy $52 worth of canned goods.’ He challenged everybody in that subdivision to do the same. And now it got so big we have to send a truck there. I mean, it’s huge. That’s the kind of stuff you see.”
He says drivers witness food donations coming from people who could use help themselves. “They are giving from the heart,” John says.
Besides helping the needy, the tractor cruise is preserving a legacy for farm families. “I can tell you 90 percent of these drivers, they have a family, and their family is going to be sitting someplace on this route, watching them go by,” John says. “Whoever that driver may be, he might be driving their grandpa’s tractor. There’s a lot of guys, they just buy a tractor for this tractor cruise. We are saving history on these tractors. They were well-made, they were well-engineered. And at one time a lot of them went to scrap. We just try to keep that legacy going.”
At the end of the cruise, donated money and food is divided up between the nine food pantries. The food will be on the shelves the next day.
“The tractor cruise has been a wonderful blessing,” says Becky Gillihan, president of Second Blessings Food Pantry in Union. “We help 100-plus families a week. The need is ever growing. To give each family that comes just corn one week is just under 8,000 cans of corn per year.”
She says the money donated helps pay for overhead and has paid for commercial coolers for meat and produce.
“It’s a good thing at the end of the day to know you made a difference for somebody,” John says. “That’s what we want to do. That is my goal every day of my life, to make a difference in someone’s life. With this project we kind of cover all the bases. It’s a community thing, it’s a family thing. And we serve those who need it. And we are having fun doing it.”
The 2024 Journey for Charity is Sept. 8. For more information, call John Jasper at 314-581-6968 or Rick Mueller at 636-390-3116.