The nonprofit organization works in cities across the Midwest to collect items like food and clothing to send to areas ravaged by conflict and destruction.

“The Orphan Grain Train is a humanitarian organization,” said Richard Hartwig, assistant manager of the Clemons branch. “It’s based out of Norfolk, Neb. and there are 27 collection centers around the country, and the one in Clemons is one of those. We collect clothing, medical supplies, bicycles and different things people donate.”

The group has sent more than 3,200 semi-trailer truck loads to at least 68 different countries. Clemons, 17 miles away from Marshalltown, has its own Grain Train Station. With an estimated population of 144, the city has managed to reach out to communities in need several times its own size.

“It’s all volunteer,” said John Maddick, manager of the Clemons branch, which opened in 2015, “It’s a good feeling to sort and pack these items for needy people.”

Contributed photo — Orphan Grain Train volunteers help load a truck with items such as food, clothing and medical supplies. The trucks are sent to locations that have been ravaged by conflict or destruction.

The organizers in Clemons box up supplies to send to Norfolk. From Norfolk those supplies are sent all over the world.

“It started in 1992 in Norfolk Neb. and has grown since then,” Hartwig said.

The idea began with the Rev. Dr. Wallace Schulz, a former Associate Speaker of The Lutheran Hour radio broadcast. He and his family were sent to Riga, Latvia to broadcast The Lutheran Hour in former communist countries in Eastern Europe. While there in Riga the idea of how to provide spiritual help and humanitarian aid to hungry souls and bodies resulted in the formation of the Orphan Grain Train.

The Rev. Ray S. Wilke, pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Norfolk, volunteered with a group in Latvia and Russia for a church mission.

There they met people with no hope in desperate need of spiritual, emotional, and humanitarian aid after the breakup of the former Soviet Union, according to the website. The Latvians begged Rev. Wilke to help them more after he went home and he promised he would. Wilke envisioned a train that would travel through America’s midwest, picking up cars of donated grain along the way, until it reached a port from which the grain would be shipped to feed starving orphans in Eastern Europe.

Wilke partnered up with Clayton Andrews, president of Andrews Van Lines and thus began Orphan Grain Train.

It spread all around due to “word of mouth,” said Hartwig. “It’s been steadily growing.”

Donations are still brought in and fundraisers are held to help ship the supplies.

“We’ve already made about 15 shipments overseas,” Hartwig said.

They work out of the old Clemons Lutheran School, which is no longer in use. The school is used as a warehouse of sorts, is owned by the Orphan Grain Train.

The Clemons branch hasn’t just sent supplies overseas, they also try to help folks in the United States.

Even Marshalltown, after the 2018 tornado, received one of those truck loads.

“We sent some supplies to Marshalltown after the tornado,” Hartwig said. “We’re trying to do some local things.”

They have a load pending to go to Ukraine soon.

“We believe Jesus told us to help the sick and needy and that’s what we do,” Hartwig said.

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Contact Thomas Nelson at 641-753-6611 or tnelson@timesrepublican.com