(Radio Iowa) – A national group is helping a family near Wellman continuing to recover from the damage done by the March 31st tornado, as planting season gets underway. Clint Whetstine’s family’s farms have been in Wellman since the late 1880s. There are multiple farmsteads, and while not every one saw destruction — Whetstine tells K-C-R-G T-V the E-F4 tornado wiped out one. “Did not have a structure left standing here,” Whetstine says, “the machine sheds, the livestock buildings, they’re all gone.”

Dan Erdmann and the non-profit group Farm Rescue is helping the Whetstines with the big task of recovery. “The whole goal is to lighten the burden. He said, “As you might imagine, there’s still quite a bit of debris strewn about so we’ve been cleaning up the fields. But the last few days we’ve been doing that tillage work.”  While the nonprofit gets many requests, he tells K-C-R-G T-V this particular instance is one that has taken priority. “As you might imagine, there’s still quite a bit of debris strewn about so we’ve been cleaning up the fields. But the last few days we’ve been doing that tillage work,” he says.

Farm damage near Wellman, IA. (KCRG-TV photo)

Erdman says they call it a hand up, not a hand out. He says they’re providing tangible support just to get them through this crisis and onto the next season, and hopefully keep them farming long-term.