A COMMUNITY harvest project has bolstered the books of the Gnowangerup Sporting Complex for a number of years but the money raised from this year's crop couldn't be put to better use.
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Despite the season turning out a lower yield than usual this year's harvest will literally put a roof back over the club's head.
After February storms wreaked havoc throughout the Great Southern earlier this year the Gnowangerup Sporting Complex was declared an unstable structure after it lost its roof and sustained major damage to various parts of the building.
Complex committee chairman Richard House said the project had proven to be very worthwhile throughout its 10 year history and this year would be no exception.
"We applied to the State Government and have had approval from the Gnowangerup Shire to not only re-do our sporting complex but also put down a dual surface for both a hockey field and tennis courts," Richard said.
"The extra dollars will certainly come in handy."
Richard said the canola and wheat crops were the last to be sown in the Gnowangerup district and the Wyalkatchem wheat's yield had been surprising.
"The wheat yielded about 1.7t/ha which was very good, but we won't talk about the canola," he laughed.
One hundred hectares of wheat and 100ha of canola was sown for the cause at the beginning of the year and local machinery dealership Ratten and Slater donated its time and demonstrator equipment to put the wheat crop in.
Ratten and Slater also donated the use of one of it's demo headers which was promptly loaded onto the back of a truck at the end of the harvest to make it's way to its new home in the Eastern States.
The Gnowangerup football, netball and hockey teams hosted home games at Borden and Tambellup throughout the year and were very much looking forward to the repair of their home ground.
Local business people including farmers from around the district donated their time and services to the cause.
"There were a lot of donations made by our community from chemical, to machinery and land," Richard said.
"I have to make special mention of Travis Hawkins and the team at Ratten and Slater, the Pech family for donating 100ha of their land to plant the crop, Donald Brown of Brown's Spraying Service for his commitment to spraying the community crop over the last 10 years and John and Brad Kiddle for sowing the canola earlier in the year.
"Of course there are just too many people to mention because there are so many people involved in the project each year."
Some of the proceeds from this year's crop will also be injected into the Gnowangerup Progress Association.
