Harvest Church brings back popular game feed

By Robert Williams

Editor

Harvest Church of Frazee is bringing back the popular “Taste of the Wild” family event Saturday, March 4, at the Frazee Event Center.

This year’s event will be the seventh “Taste of the Wild” game feed since 2014. The free event has not been held since 2020.

“When we first started working on this, everybody was trying to raise funds and take care of their own; we said, ‘what if we did something that just blessed people?’” Pastor Ryan Stockstrom said. “We hope that we are bringing a quality event back to the community and we hope that this continues to gain steam and continue to grow once again. I think it’s something unique. It’s fun. I don’t knock fundraisers, but it’s nice to go to an event that is not a fundraiser. It’s a way to say we are thankful for everything that God has provided in creation and we’re celebrating that together. It’s something fun that the whole family can be a part of.”

Prior to a three-year hiatus, the event grew over time and moved to different venues to accommodate an increasing crowd.

“We said this is a really fun thing; people from the community started showing up. We have to get bigger than our fellowship hall here,” said Stockstrom. “We did it for three years and it grew beyond the event center and in 2019 we hosted it at the school.”

At the event’s peak, there were nearly 500 attendees.

“We figured reintroducing it after a few years off we are maybe going to start a little slower and go back to the event center and see where it rebuilds from there,” Stockstrom said.

During the three-year gap, members of the church were routinely asked if the event was coming back and organizers felt like 2023 was the year to do so.

“Let’s make this happen,” said Stockstrom. 

The target demographic for the event is families, those who cherish the outdoors, and nearly everyone else – assuming those people like to eat.

“I think this totally relates to our area and why not do something that is outdoors, relates to a lot of people and brings people to Frazee?” Stockstrom said.

The event is based on five particular values: Frazee, Family, Fun, Faith and Food.

Each attendee, even kids, get five tickets to potentially win this year’s grand prize, which is a $3,200 package of the winner’s choice—a fishing electronics package or a gun package.

Area cooks are encouraged to bring a wild game dish. Each person who does gets five extra prize tickets per handmade dish. People can bring one or more dishes in the following categories: Big Game, Small Game, Fish, Jerky, Kids and non-game dessert.

Doors open at 3 p.m. The Wild Game tasting begins at 5 p.m. The tasting includes samples of the different game dishes to vote on, along with a helping of mashed potatoes and cole slaw.

Unlike a lot of events, this is not a fundraiser. There is one paid portion of it this year, a silent auction.

“Funds from the silent auction go right back into the event,” said Stockstrom.

The grand prize is sponsored by Harvest Church, Twice Blessed of Frazee and the event’s largest sponsor Witt’s Quality Bait & Tackle of Detroit Lakes. Organizers got a great response from area businesses and people willing to donate door prizes and time.

“We are super blessed by how many businesses and individuals have given already,” Stockstrom said. “It’s really phenomenal.”

Throughout the event there will be free prize giveaways, free kids games with prizes and four guest speakers.

Jake Blow is the keynote speaker. His 5 p.m. presentation will center on designing high odds hunting opportunities. Blow posts related outdoors videos on his YouTube channel. He specializes in taking undeveloped or underdeveloped tracts of land and transforming the land into turnkey hunting properties that attract and retain wildlife.

There are four preceding guest speakers beginning at 3:30 p.m., Jack Mohr will be presenting on survival skills. Phillip Kern will speak about bow hunting and archery skills at 4 p.m., followed by Neal and Ryan Seeger with a presentation on sled dogs at 4:30 p.m.

Kern is the vice president of the Heart O’ Lakes Bowhunters Club in Detroit Lakes. Ryan Seeger is a former Frazee Police Officer.

Blow will also have a booth at the event, along with Woody’s Custom Arms & Outdoors, a shooting sports and gunsmith shop out of Fargo.

The silent auction closes at 5:30 p.m. Prizes will be given away at 6 p.m. All prize winners must be present to win. The grand prize winner must be at least 18-years-old.