SharkFarmerXM's podcast
Meredith Bernard from NC 10-11-24
[Music] And welcome again to Shark Farmer Radio. Hey! I'm your host Rob Shark. You were in the studio today just outside of Bradford, Illinois. Studio powered by Bex Hybrin. Harvest is, I don't know, yesterday was a tough day. I mean, we were running, the Combine didn't stop all day. We only got like 32 acres done. That's how bad that field is. Well, you're in the hardest field. We question why we have that field because it's got so many terraces. It should be in set-aside, but darn it, the hunting is fantastic. So we continue to farm the darn thing. I know. Yeah. It is. There are literally two places on that farm. We can set the cart to unload into a truck. We can't unload on the go. And even those two places are not flat. Yeah. It's just, it's a challenge, but we should finish it up this morning. I am having a fantastic morning though, because I have my daughter home. I just love that. Who's that? Hello, hello. Thanks for having me on. Nina Eileen. How's it going? Home for the weekend. Go into a wedding, right? Yes. Yeah. So I moved to Indiana after school for a job. And so just home for the weekend, I'm "working from home" today. So. Indiana soybean and corn and soybeans together there, right? Yes. So they, same staff, different board. That's how they do things there. So yeah. Oh, okay. So you got to answer it to two boards. Yes. Yeah. And the growers too. Which board member do you like the least? Oh gosh. I think it's, no, I'm just kidding. All right. Good to have you, Anita. But let's jump into our guest today, our old friend, Meredith Bernard from Milton, North Carolina. How are you doing, Meredith? Doing good. Thank you so much for having me on. You betcha. You bet. Yes. I know it's been too long. You've been busy. You've been very dedicated to trying to help the the people out there suffering for the hurricane. First of all, so that first hurricane, did it, did it affect your place at all? No, it really didn't. We just, we got like, I don't know, maybe three inches of rain out of it total. We were worried because we farm on a river. So we were worried since there were so much water west of us that rain west of us that it might get out on our beans and our corn. Of course, my husband's like, that's it. It's gone. We're done. But we were very fortunate. We'll never financially recover from. Exactly. The best soy beans we've ever had, you know, and they have been. So we didn't get any, we didn't get any flooding. We had some wind knocked them down some and, you know, maybe worried a little bit about some rotting and maybe they might be a little harder for the combine to get out. But we, we came out fine, fine. I mean, can't compare anything to what the others have faced in the mountains. Mm-hmm. If people don't follow Meredith, I don't know what's wrong with you. One of the most authentic of agriculture accounts out there, just saying what they're doing, it's, it's a lot of fun. It's been a lot of fun to follow you over the years. They're hurricane, though. That seems like that has kind of changed you, kind of personally changed you. Tell me, tell me about how this is affecting you. Okay. Maybe it's a go. We're not doing this video. So I'm already crying and I haven't started talking. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to get this. Is it because Anita's here? Is that why you're crying? I know. I cry a lot that way. No way. Yeah. It has changed me. This, so today, may, this is two weeks and it's just, it feels like, in some ways, it feels like two years and in some ways, it feels like two seconds. So it's just been, well, the one word that comes to mind is just overwhelming because when I started, so you want me to just kind of tell what I've been doing and how this all started. Yes, absolutely. Okay. So our, I serve on the, our casual county Farm Bureau Board and on the women's committee. So, um, we have a group chat and every, you know, we were talking and, of course, you feel helpless. You want to help. These are, these are our neighbors that have been so affected and you want to do something. And so we said, well, we'll do a donation drive and we've got access to one of our farm size tractor trailers and we'll, we'll just take what we can and do what we can and what we can collect. And I said, well, I live in the northern part of the county and so I knew I probably wouldn't get as many actual people driving here for donations. But I said, well, I'm going to use my platform and I'll just, I don't know, I'll just throw out my Venmo, which, I mean, I've used like five times in my whole life, kind of like random that I even have one. I was like, I'll just throw out my Venmo and my PayPal and see if, you know, I'm sure that I'm, I'm sure there'll be some people that follow me that would want to donate. Well, you know, here we are like $50,000 later. $50,000. Yeah, over $50,000. And that's just people that follow you. Yeah, it's unreal. And then I also created a t-shirt for hurricane relief and that's over 15,000 in addition that I'm going to be giving to them. I'm giving, it was really important to me not to just do the profit only. So I'm eating the cost of the shirts, which fortunately my company is selling them to me at cost. They're not, they're not charging any extra for, they've been super, they're not charging extra for printing or for fulfillment cost. So yeah, every, every 1999 that people spend on their t-shirt will go directly to the mountains to people I need. And I'm doing that through my church. We have, we actually have a satellite church in the middle of Asheville. That has obviously been affected and the church itself is okay, but they're serving as a hub for receiving donations and then getting it out to the community. So, $65,000. And you know, it's, that's just one person. That's what gets me. There's so many people doing so many great things. This is one person and she's raised this much. I know. And let's not, let's not just ignore, but it's not just me. This is like, it's not me. That's what I just, I don't want to take any credit for any, because it's not me. Tough. It's my show. Well, we're getting credit. Well, we got to talk about this. All the people. All right. Today, we're talking about our friend, Meredith Bernard from Milton, North Carolina. You better go follow her this farm wife and all the socials. We'll be back. This segment is brought to you by Common Ground. Are you looking for an easy way to buy, sell, or lease your land? Well, check out Common Ground where they connect landowners and farmers and hunters to, by the way, go to commonground.io. That's commonground.io. I can keep an eye on your brother out there on the Jonder Ops Center. Wow. Yeah. It's like life 360, but worse. It is because it breaks it up. I can see like, how much time the machine's moving, how much idle time. So if the idle percentage gets up too much, wow, he's terrible. He's terrible. He watches and he's like, why hasn't he moved in 20 seconds? It's like, oh my gosh, he's he's unloading in the semi. I did. I called him yesterday right before the show. I'm like, is anything wrong? He's like, why? He said, well, I've seen you haven't moved. He's like, I'm unloading, you know, because he has to run the combine and load when I'm not there. In other words, he's doing his dad's job and his dad's checking on him. Yeah. He was a little, he was a little miffed drama. My friend's wedding is on Saturday. Yes. Tomorrow. Okay. Is it afternoon or morning wedding? It's one of those like four o'clock sweet spots. That's not bad. Oh, it's wonderful. Yeah. And then is the reception? Is that four hours away from the wedding place? Same place. It's at Ewing Manor in Bloomington, Illinois. Nice. Yeah. Very gorgeous. It's like a castle. Oh, is that the old jammers? Oh, I have no idea. Okay. Forget it. Today, we're talking with Meredith Bernard from Milton, North Carolina. You know her on social media and YouTube, this a farm wife. She was telling us, I mean, it's amazing, $50,000 that you have raised for the hurricane relief, plus another 15ish. And let's not just there. You say, yeah, you get the t-shirts at cost. That's still money out of your pocket. So I want to give you a little pat on the back for that. All right. So you've raised this money. So then what, what are you all doing with it? Okay. So we've got a couple different things. We took the first 20, well, I don't know, probably $25,000. We spent this past week, two days, we went over to the mountains and we were able to take a tractor, not a tractor. Well, yes, a tractor trailer full load of water that went yesterday separately. And then a cattle trailer full of supplies, another enclosed trailer, I think it was like 20 foot enclosed trailer. And then I had the back of my truck filled with dog food and other supplies. What they need that too. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, it went, it went really fast. In fact, we could definitely use more of that. So we took that to a central location that churches in the area had gotten the word out are one of our members in Farm Bureau. She's from Bryson City, which is west of Asheville and her father's a pastor. And he was able to get word out. So we met in a parking lot. And this was all done through and in conjunction with the county sheriff. So that helped a lot. So a lot of, there's been a lot of different reports about having trouble getting over there and different government agencies getting in the way. And I won't even go into that. But we didn't have trouble. We had the law on our side. So we, we set up there and within four hours, every, almost every bit of it was handed out, like directly to people in need. And so even though that area was not hit as bad with hurricane damage, there was like this whole trickle down effect because they hadn't had power. And then one issue. So the grocery stores and their stores didn't have supplies or as soon as people can get to them, they were gone. And so they were running out of just basic necessities. And you got children showing up and you've got people that need diapers. And I mean, just all the formula, all the things. There were somebody that had a baby two days after the storm. They didn't set the formula. They couldn't find it. So I'm like, it's like getting every bit of some lack of special formula that I can find. We're going to feed this baby. And so we did that with that. And then I also, my home church that's based in Danville, Virginia, we have several satellite churches throughout several states around here. But we had one right in the middle of Asheville and they were affected. The pastor, in fact, his house is directly next to the church. And it has a tree over half of it, his family, his wife and three children are like living with somebody in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He's completely removed from them right now. He's sleeping in the basement of the church. And staying there, using the church as a hub, a central location for donations to come from all of our other churches. And they've set up a free grocery store under a tent. The kids and I went this week and we were able to help unload a truck and get that stuff dispersed and talk to people and help them shop. And that will remain open as long as we continue to get donations. And then they're also using supplies and taking them through volunteers out into the little towns. To see this is the thing. You've got all these little places that are hard to reach. I mean, some of them can only be reached by foot, by horse, by mule, by ATV as they continue to to cut things out. But they're going to be without power for, well, some of these places, probably potentially for a year, two year, I don't know, months anyway, and working into the cold weather. So the needs are going to start changing. I'm going to go back in two weeks and take my daughter and probably somebody else. And we're going to try to get out there and actually deliver some things to some people too. And just keep assessing the needs and just hope that things keep coming in. I think one of my biggest fears right now is that in a couple of weeks, this will be old news. And I don't want that to happen. So I'm going to continue to do everything I can to keep it top of mind. And it's really important for me to know that they're money. But the money that people have sent me is going directly to people in need. It's not going to someone's organization to pay overhead. Like it's literally going directly to the people on that. It's going to continue to be my goal for anything I get. That's just absolutely amazing to hear. Meredith, we absolutely love to take any opportunity to talk about our faith in the Lord and how He's changed our lives. And I've been seeing on your social media, you have been talking about the power of prayer and just how you've been walking through that on this journey. Can you talk a little bit about how you feel like God's been laying His hand on this situation? Yeah, I mean, I kind of wish I'd been just writing every little thing down. But I don't even think I could, I couldn't keep track with it now. It's just every day there's something else. Like there's just something else that happens or shows up. And even from just like the other day being there handing out things and somebody coming up and saying, I really need like, I don't have any light. I really could use, is there any kind of like solar light or something that I could have? And I literally had just unboxed thorns. The only one I've seen in three days. I was like, this is for you. I mean, it's hard to put in the words. The prayers have been felt like they're working. And like I said yesterday in a post, this whole thought hit me. Okay, not gonna cry. This whole thought hit me a few days ago. How I really believe that six years ago when I started this journey, the social media journey in my YouTube channel, I do believe that it's always had purpose. And you know, I see the purpose in sharing our story and the story of Ag and helping people relate to the family farm and where their food and fiber comes from. But I think there is a much greater story. And I feel like there's, I'm seeing more of the full potential of the purpose of this platform. And I mean, it's the platform that I truly believe God has given me that he has grown and that he has allowed me to use for his goodness glory and to give him all credit for all of this. And I really feel like in these six years, he's truly been raising an army secretly raising an army for such a time as this. All right, we are not done talking about this, but we do have to go to break. We'll be back with Mary over the hard right after the break. This segment is brought to you by Common Ground. Are you looking for an easy way to buy, sell, or lease your land? Well, check out Common Ground where they connect landowners and farmers and hunters too, by the way. Go to commonground.io that's commonground.io. Welcome back to shark farmer radigan. We got our daughter Anita with us today. Hello, hello. You know, Anita one Meredith was talking about like, you know, she's standing there and someone wants a solar light and she has a solar light. I'm like, she's, you know what Meredith is. She is like a mini-pearl version of Santa Claus. We were talking about how God provides dad, but I do love Santa Claus. But he was like, I don't either. Because like, if you're thinking of Santa Claus, you think, you know, jolly, and then, you know, here you have Meredith. Here you go. Y'all want some butter with that. Today we're talking of Meredith Bernard from Milton, North Carolina, this farm wife on all these socials. She has raised a bunch of money, 50,000 plus plus another 15 and a t-shirt sales for the people plus you are going out there. Now, have you, when you raise money, I mean, unfortunately, there are bad people in this world. I mean, has there been any hiccups with that? Okay. Yeah. So the one hiccup, the only one I've had so far in Uncle Wood is through Venmo. And so there's been, and I had seen it happen to some others and I was like, oh, please don't happen to me. And then, of course, that happened. So there's people or great. I don't know how even, I don't know who these people are, but they changed. They steal your profile picture. It looks just like you. They put up what looks just like your handle, but they just added one little dash at the end of my name. And so luckily one of my followers sent me a message and showed me both of the profiles. And she's like, wait a minute, which one is you? And I was like, no. And the problem with it was impossible for me to try to report it. There was, I went to the page and it was all these different questions to answer. And I tried doing it and tried doing it. I was like, need more information. I was like, I don't know. I just need you to, there's not an easy way to like flag it. So that is an issue that I need to address. But if you're giving for anybody to Venmo, just make sure that it's the exact right link, because there are, unfortunately, evil people out there just disgusting. It makes me so mad. Oh, it makes me so mad too. There are some really amazing, amazing group down there in a red shirt, Samaritan's Purse. That's a great organization to give to. Wouldn't you agree? Because all this has happened like right in their back door, you said. Yes, they're based out of actual Black Mountain area and they are an amazing group. That is the one group that I keep pushing people to if they want somewhere else to give. I wholeheartedly believe in what they're doing. And I know some people that have been there volunteering with their groups and they have a great army and they have a lot of people and they're touching all the different places and helping with starting now. It's definitely past rescue and we're in recovery and restoration and starting to try to help people muck out their homes and make the best of what they've got left and feed them and close them. And like I said, we're coming into the winter. I mean, it's already getting down in the 30s at nine. It's going to be rough this winter. Because they're not going to have power. Many of these places are just not going to have power through the winter. It's hard to wrap our head around what they're going to be facing. Wow. Meredith, I saw that you took your kids along with you on some of your endeavors. Will you talk a little bit about that and what that was like having your kids with you during this? It was wonderful. I'm so glad they were able to go. My son is in community college full-time right now. So he did miss a couple days and he's going to have to make up for it. But it was worth it. It was totally worth it. It was great for them, I think, to be able to see firsthand the some of that we didn't see a terrible, terrible devastation. We did go through old for it, which you could Google that and you'll see some pictures and that was really bad. But being able to see the people that were coming in and talk to them and just really know that they were helping being what I keep saying being the hands of Jesus. I know it's something that they will take with them forever and I hope it spurs them on to want to keep doing this with me in the future and any other, you know, who knows what else they'll face in their lifetime, but I do believe that they'll take this with them and it's a positive experience. They didn't, you know, it wasn't like they were traumatized by anything. I think that was all very positive and my daughter wants to go back with me in a couple weeks and take a friend. Oh, I love planting seeds through the winter. Is FEMA there? Okay, I did not personally see FEMA. I have heard that they are there. The only personal experience I have was a lady that was in our little free grocery store shopping and she was on her cell phone and she said she'd been on the phone for five hours with them trying to get things set up to be able to get her initial $750. So there's a lot of conflicting information. I can't speak firsthand. That's literally all, you know, the only person I've talked to in person that had any kind of issue. So they're, I mean, from what I hear that they're there, I don't know that they got there as fast as they should have. And I have a lot of questions about the amount of money and their ability. That's for another show. That could be a whole series. It is, you know, it is neighbors, helping neighbors. There is no doubt. And I've followed this quote several times. I'm going to say it. One redneck is worth a thousand PhDs. That is what is out there helping and saving is just, you know, the neighbors and neighbors. People that have lost everything are jumping right in there and helping other people. And I think that's what's amazing. Oh my gosh. I love hearing about that community. We just did a segment on, you know, the North Dakota wildfire fires. I can't talk and how their communities have come together. And, you know, it's, it's amazing to see. And, you know, even if, you know, FEMA is not there or, or the government's not in it, it's, it's the neighbors. It's the neighbors coming together, helping each other out. And the whole way of life, you know, Appalachia, mountains, people live up in the mountains. There's still people unaccounted for, still people who need clean water and things. And I, I love it that people like you are, are going in with donations and people can show up. Well, that's what I wonder too. What do you see in Meredith? Because these are proud people, the independent people. Are they, are they, are they, are they taken help? Yes, they are. And that was one thing I talked to the kids about. I was like, you saw every single person that came and got supplies from us was so appreciative. God bless you. Thank you. Oh my goodness. Some people just were, you know, like, I just need two packs of wipes. I'm like, look, we've got a mountain here. You take as much as you need, come back tomorrow and you get as much, you know, not greedy, not, I mean, I'm serious. Every single person that I came in contact was just immensely grateful. And I'm seeing that all over social media too. I really am. Yes, they're proud and they're strong. And that's what's going to get them through this. But they're so appreciative for the help. Yeah, for sure. So Meredith, if people are interested in seeing you or donating or any of that stuff, where did they go? Okay, I created a separate page on my website and I'm going to get that edited a little bit more today. But it's, it's up there. I'm not a guru at this stuff, so it's taken me time. But you can go to hopeinthestorm.com and it'll take you directly to a page on my site with the t-shirt and with my PayPal and Venmo and a link to my church and what they're doing. And I'll keep adding to that. I'm getting ready to add a hat. We're going to keep, we're going to keep. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Is that hat going to have like a price tag hanging off of it? No, maybe, maybe I'll keep that just for you. I think that would be fantastic. Might have a stick of butter too. Yeah. Well, this farm wife Meredith Bernard, thank you for what you're doing. Thank you. You've always been a great voice for agriculture, just a solid, solid place for people to learn about ag and what it's real life and everything. I've loved every time we've got the chance to interview you. This was no different. So thank you for all that you're doing. Believe me, I absolutely. So go check her out this farm wife and hey, maybe crack open that wallet. Crops are pretty decent. We can forward a little bit. Meredith, thank you so very much. Everybody else, hang on, Sean Haney's coming up next. [Music]