Colleen Hansen looked in shock at the world Maine-Anjou sale Nov. 25 at Canadian Western Agribition in Regina.
A heifer she hoped would sell for $4,500 was getting closer to $16,000, something she and her husband, Myles, didn’t expect.
That day, she soon realized, would be filled with many surprises.
“They didn’t announce the buyer right away,” she said. “And then when Rob (Voice) asked us to come back out, then I knew something was up.”
Just more than a month ago, Colleen and Myles unexpectedly lost their oldest daughter, eight-year-old Paisley. Though she lived with epilepsy and cerebral palsy, Hansen said she was a healthy, happy girl who touched the lives of everyone.
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“Paisley was a big deal to them,” Hansen said of her other two children. “They always tried to include her.
“Everybody that knows us knew Paisley and she was always just such a bright light and everybody just kind of gravitated towards her.”
Everyone in the industry knew Paisley, too. When she needed a new wheelchair, the industry rallied behind her and raised the money when the Hansens were denied funding.
In the Maine-Anjou industry, Paisley was part of the family.
“When it comes down to it, the cattle industry is pretty much just a big family and the support was unbelievable,” Hansen said.
With Agribition coming, the Hansens consigned one of their heifers to the sale — one that their two other children had become attached to, especially their six-year-old son, who wanted to have the heifer for his first year of 4-H.
Rob Voice, a member of the Bohrson marketing team, first heard the idea to collect donations from Colleen Hansen’s sister. He jumped on it and started spreading the word.
“The other two children got really attached to the heifer as part of getting ready for Agribition and getting ready for the sale,” Voice said. “And it was going to be very difficult to sell that heifer because the kids are so attached to her. So it was an idea initially to do something there for the family, to help support them in a tough time.”
Voice and others began to spread the news of the fundraiser throughout the Maine-Anjou barn at Agribition and other barns. Eventually, the idea caught and producers from all over and all different breeds donated to the Hansen family.
Voice said the amount of support they got was more than he expected.
“I think at the start, we were hoping to get, you know, $6,000 or $7,000 and thought that would be really nice,” he said. “But people kept coming and people were very generous with their donations.”
Emotions ran high at the sale as the Hansens were presented not only with the $16,000 from the donations, but also with the heifer that had become so important to their two youngest children.
“It was a big surprise, I think, and it was almost hard to speak about it after because it was emotional to everybody,” Voice said.
“I was getting a little choked up myself up there.”
Although the donations totalled about $16,000 at the time of the sale, Voice received more after. At the time of writing, the total was closer to $17,000.
For Colleen and her family, she said the support means the world.
“Just a huge thank you. You have no idea how much this support means and to know that this many people are thinking of our family and doing this to honour Paisley is unbelievable.”
Now, the Hansens will surprise their youngest children when they return with the sale heifer they had become attached to.
The Hansens also redid the logo for their farm recently, with a paisley symbol nestled against their farm name as they keep the memory of their late daughter close.
