Close to 800 farm workers from the region gathered at Osoyoos Baptist Church Saturday afternoon for a new program that is feeding farm workers every Saturday in June and early July. (Contributed photo)

Pastor Phil Johnson, the spiritual leader of Osoyoos Baptist Church, has seen a lot of wonderful things happen at the church, but he’s never seen anything quite like what happened Saturday afternoon and evening.

For eight summers now, parishioners and community volunteers have been holding special events to feed the hundreds of farm workers from Quebec who migrate to Osoyoos and Oliver and other parts of the South Okanagan to pick fruit and enjoy the beautiful sunshine.

This year, the Osoyoos Baptist Church has changed things up and instead of one week every summer where they invite all the Quebec pickers for dinner, they have decided to host a dinner every Saturday night, starting June 3 and wrapping up with the final dinner on July 8, said Johnson.

With St. Jean Baptist Celebrations taking place this past weekend, Johnson and a group of volunteers were preparing the Saturday evening dinner expecting as many as 500 farm workers to show up for dinner.

Much to his delight, close to 800 were fed by the time things wrapped up early Saturday evening, said Johnson.

“We’ve been doing this for eight years now and that was the largest crowd we’ve ever fed,” he said smiling. “With St. Jean Baptist celebrations taking place, we really didn’t know what to expect in terms of numbers, but we thought we might be in the 500 range, but the kids started coming early and it never stopped.

“At last count, we had prepared meals for more than 780 and we managed to get them all fed in about two hours. We started with hamburgers and quickly ran out, so then we switched to spaghetti and sauce and managed to get everyone fed.”

With the annual Farmer Workers Picnic the previous night at Lions Park in Oliver attracting hundreds of farm workers, Johnson was shocked so many showed up Saturday, but was thrilled the event went off without a hitch.

“Despite the huge crowd, there was a really good vibe and we managed to get everyone fed, which is amazing considering we never planned for close to 800 people,” he said. “Our group of volunteers did a fantastic job.

“We had a sign up sheet up for a couple of weeks and had 275 sign up, so we planned to maybe double those numbers, but to see almost 800 show up was incredible.”

For the first time, Johnson allowed the farm workers to put up their tents and spend the night and hundreds took him up on the offer, he said.

Having regular Saturday night dinners at Osoyoos Baptist Church has worked out nicely as the farm workers are guaranteed one solid, healthy meal each week, said Johnson.

The idea to feed farm workers came from parishioners at Mountain Park Church in Abbotsford eight years ago, but members of the congregation there had to tackle another project in 2017 and left all decisions up to Johnson and the parishioners at Osoyoos Baptist Church.

The idea to prepare a large feast every Saturday night for six weeks was adopted, instead of the traditional practice of offering meals over five consecutive days in July, said Johnson.

“We felt it would be better to feed them once a week, instead of five days in a row during one week,” he said. “It seems to have worked out very well. The kids we’re getting are very, very respectful and grateful for the food we’re offering to them.”

Osoyoos Baptist Church is also continuing to offer free showers and laundry services at the church for farm workers, said Johnson.

The Saturday dinners continue to grow in popularity with more farm workers coming to the region.

“We had 55 at our first dinner in early June, 150 the next Saturday, just over 400 on June 17 and then almost 800 this past weekend,” he said. “We’re obviously helping a lot of people and that feels really good.’

KEITH LACEY

Osoyoos Times

Farm workers make music informally at the Osoyoos Baptist Church on Saturday when close to 800 of them dropped by for dinner. (Contributed photo)

Volunteers work in the kitchen at Osoyoos Baptist Church to prepare a meal for close to 800 farm workers on Saturday. (Contributed photo)