Sunflower selfies for a cause

Over 100 acres of bright yellow sunflowers are standing tall on a farm in southern Manitoba, creating the ideal background to snap the perfect prairie picture and a good cause.

This is the second year Dean Towes has grown a sunflower field on his family farm located an hour and a half West of Winnipeg. It offers photographers and selfie enthusiasts a place to capture stunning images and generate donations to the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.

“There’s always been a need and right now it seems to be growing faster than going down so, it’s definitely a good time to support Canadian Foodgrains and the work that they do,” explained Towes.

Last year Toews raised $2,000 in cash donations and more online. The sunflowers are harvested after the flowers have been captured in photos.

The sale of last year’s harvest provided an additional $20,000 donation to the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.

“So, it’s basically a value-added of people coming, donating cash, and then we harvest the rest of it so there’s no waste.”

Towes says the field is also effective in keeping his neighbour’s sunflower fields free of visiting tourists and Instagrammers who unknowingly trample and damage crops.

“So, to just come onto any field is trespassing and if you take the sunflower heads then that’s stealing right, so we give permission to come onto the field and also to harvest a head if that’s what you want.”

And lots of people do want to visit the field.

“We thought, what a great idea let’s stop by and check it out,” said Andy McLatchy.

McLatchy is with a group travelling from B.C. to the Maritimes, and on the way back they planned a special stop in Manitoba to see the sunflowers and get a picture for their album of great Canadian snapshots.

“It looks like golden sunshine on this rainy day.”

Michael Chui from Toronto also stopped by to see the sunflowers.

“This is my first time actually,” Chui told CityNews. “[The flowers are] gorgeous, too bad they don’t stay forever.”

Towes says the field is not yet in full bloom, and the best pictures are yet to come.

“There are still lots of heads to open up yet so it’s just going to get fuller and fuller, I’m thinking by this weekend it will be at its prime.”