Volunteers transport library materials, sandbagger-style, up the stairs at the Valley City State University Allen Memorial Library. (Photo credit/Steve Collins)

By Steve Browne
Valley City Times-Record

As the Sheyenne River rises, aid from businesses, organizations and individuals motivated solely by the desire to help comes pouring in to Valley City from far and wide.
The owner of Sandy's in West Fargo recently delivered about 50 boxes of doughnuts.
"They caught up with me on West Main and gave me seven boxes of two dozen each," said Valley City Police Sgt. Dave Swenson. "I gave them to Public Works, the Sheriff's Department, the police dispatchers and the Guard."
Representatives of Christian Disaster Relief in Grafton came by on Saturday and asked how they could help. CDR is a worldwide organization of the Mennonite church based in Kansas with state headquarters in Grafton, N.D. On Sunday, they came with 12 volunteers to work in Sandbag Central and on Monday they came with 24 more from Grafton and Iroquois, S.D. They've been sandbagging and helping move anything that might be damaged by water to the second floor of the music building at Valley City State University.
"Our mandate as CDR is to help people in need," said Grafton organizer Dean Fricke. "I saw the forecast and noticed that Valley City was getting very high, so we came."
Fricke told the City Commission if the need was great, they could call on as many as 80 or more volunteers. On Tuesday, CDR brought in a group of eight from Cartwright, Manitoba.       
Salvation Army women from the McHenry Café in McHenry, N.D., and Wicked Step in Glenfield brought a roaster full of chicken, two containers of potato salad, home-made buns and dessert to the Police station on Saturday afternoon and asked they be shared with the Public Works crews. Then they stayed and helped sandbag for a few hours, according to police dispatcher Andrea Suhr.
City Commissioner Jon Wagar said he'd met a farmer's widow from north of Oakes, originally from Wisconsin, who'd been helping sandbag for 10 straight days.
 "And she has no connection with Valley City," Wagar said. "She just wanted to help."
Harold Pross, 78, from Luverne has come to sandbag every day. "Valley City is my town," Pross said, "there isn't much left of Luverne. This is a team effort and everyone is doing his bit."
Sam McDermott, originally from Columbia, S.C., is a first-year graduate student in physics at the University of Ann Arbor, Mich.
"I'd read in the New York Times that Fargo was seeing record waters," McDermott said. "So I went there and they told me they were doing fine, but there was a little town 60 miles west that could use some help."
The John Deere plant in Valley City couldn't spare any workers off the shop floor because of production demand, so General Manager Keith Hovland came over to help sandbag himself.
"I asked who the most expendable person at the plant was, and they said it was me," Hovland joked.
Though John Deere is only contributing one sandbagger, the company is covering the cost of rent, heat, and lighting for the Winter Show building.
"And an endless supply of pallets," Hovland added. “We've always got so many we have to throw them away.”