Larry Mercey Trio to carry out at fundraising live performance in Harriston

HARRISTON – The Larry Mercey Trio and Leo Inventory will carry out at a fundraising live performance in help of the Canadian Foodgrains Financial institution hosted by the Harriston Foodgrains Rising Venture.

The Oct. 1 live performance can be held at Knox-Calvin Presbyterian Church in Harriston starting at 2pm.

Based in 1983, the Canadian Foodgrains Financial institution is celebrating its fortieth anniversary in 2023. The CFB was initially fashioned by the Mennonite Central Committee with encouragement from the Canadian authorities. Different church buildings have been invited to affix and the group now consists of 15 member church buildings and church businesses working collectively towards a purpose of ending world starvation.

Rising tasks started in 1989 when farmers, people, companies, church buildings and different curiosity events got here collectively to develop crops. After the crops are harvested and offered on the Canadian market, the proceeds are utilized by CFB members of their work towards ending starvation.

The imaginative and prescient continues to thrive in over 200 energetic neighborhood rising tasks throughout Canada, many who have lasted a long time and spanned generations.

The Harriston Foodgrains Rising Venture started in 1997 and this 12 months marks the 25 years of labor by the native committee, with a number of of the unique volunteers nonetheless concerned with the mission.      

Land for the Harriston mission was initially rented from the Ziegler, Von Westerholt and Stemmler households. Since 2007 the native mission has used about 60 acres of land contributed by Jim and June Macdonald, with rotation of wheat, corn, soybeans and hay. 

Native church buildings concerned embrace Harriston United Church, Knox-Calvin Presbyterian Church and St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Neustadt, with Royal York Highway United Church, Toronto, because the group’s city companion since 2014. Through the years different church buildings have included Conn and Cedarville United Church buildings, St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church, St. James Lauderbach Lutheran Church, and Islington United Church, Toronto.   

Since its inception, the Harriston mission has contributed over $500,000 to the Canadian Foodgrains Financial institution. With the federal authorities matching on a four-to-one foundation, the Harriston mission has helped elevate greater than $2 million to carry meals to hungry folks in different nations. Whereas the sale of crops gives the majority of the funds forwarded to Canadian Foodgrains annually, cash additionally comes from dinners, concert events and different fundraisers.

This 12 months’s fall wheat crop has already been harvested and set to be offered to lift money for this 12 months’s donation. Alan Lee, one of many native organizers mentioned the Harriston mission committee needs to thank Zemmelink Farms Harriston Agromart and Rolymar Farms for offering gear and fertilizer and Kindred Credit score Union for its help.

Lee mentioned the concept to e book Mercey’s band for the native present got here from one other committee member, John Crispin, who had seen the group carry out not too long ago in Elmira.

“He thought it might be a superb group to have for a fundraiser,” Lee notes.

 The Larry Mercey Trio was fashioned in 2004 by Canadian music icon Larry Mercy after his brothers determined to not carry out as The Mercey Brothers following a profession spanning three a long time.

 Mercey began his profession on the CKNX Barn Dance, broadcasting from Wingham in 1956. He then fashioned The Mercey Brothers who have been inducted into the Canadian Nation Music Corridor of Fame after recording 17 albums and releasing about 50 singles. The group additionally earned seven Juno awards and quite a few different accolades.

The Larry Mercey Trio consists of Mercey, guitarist George Lonsbury and bass participant Al Alderson. The group’s present CD It Ain’t Over But consists of the favored single On My Father’s Facet.

Initially from Hanover, Mercey resides as of late in Ilderton. The trio, he mentioned, performs eight or 10 reveals a 12 months.

In a phone interview Mercey mentioned the Harriston present will characteristic some basic nation music and “slightly little bit of gospel” in addition to 10 or 12 Mercey Brothers tunes.

“It’s fairly a wide range of materials, actually.”

The present can even characteristic step dancer and fiddler Leo Inventory, an 18-year-old fiddler and step dancer from Stratford. Inventory received the 2022 Open Step Dancing Championship on the Ontario Open Fiddle and Step Dance Contest, in addition to the Canadian Open Championship. 

“It makes our present totally different as a result of it’s not simply us singing. Leo does slightly set with us taking part in for him,” notes Mercey.

The veteran musician is wanting ahead to performing within the space the place he acquired his begin. He says right now’s younger musicians don’t profit from the kind of publicity supplied by native radio and tv programming that was obtainable within the early days.

“I used to be 16 years previous after I began engaged on the CKNX barn dance, so we have been very fortunate. When CKNX acquired TV we have been proper on tv,” he remembers. 

“Younger children don’t have alternatives like that right now – there’s no Tommy Hunter Present, or any of the range reveals like that.”

At 83, Mercey says he’s contemplating slowing down when it comes to his efficiency schedule however isn’t able to pack it in altogether.

“I take pleasure in taking part in with the fellas I play with,” he notes.

Mercey not too long ago detailed his prolonged profession in an autobiography, Have Mercey, My First 60 Years Making Music.

He says the 420-page publication could be of curiosity to “anybody who want to know what the lifetime of a rustic musician was like.”

The e book is accessible on Kindle Books, Amazon.ca or by emailing: [email protected].

Tickets for the Oct. 1 present in Harriston value $30 and can be found at Dwelling {Hardware} shops in Harriston, Palmerston and Mount Forest or by calling John Crispin, 519-323-2700, or Allan Lee, 519-321-9635.