U.S. Rep. Larsen makes House calls on local farmers

With Congress on summer recess, U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Everett) took a field trip to the La Conner area last Tuesday.

Make that field trips.

Larsen made stops at the Hedlin’s Family Farm stand near the roundabout and at Tulip Town on Bradshaw Road northeast of La Conner as part of a Second Congressional District tour to learn how Paycheck Protection Program loans issued earlier this year have helped save jobs in the area.

The responses? The funding packages proved vital as local farms dealt with COVID-19 pandemic induced financial strains. Washington state went into a major economic lockdown in late March – just prior to the annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival – in an attempt to stop the virus from spreading.

“The timing was good,” Serena Campbell of Hedlin’s Farm said of the loans. “It was relatively easy to spend on labor.”

Larsen met for a half hour each at Hedlin’s and Tulip Town, visits arranged by the congressman’s community liaison Jenn Rogers.

“It was a good meeting,” Dave Hedlin said afterward. “I think the most important thing for us was to have the opportunity to touch base with him on COVID and how it’s affecting agriculture.”

Larsen told Campbell and Hedlin and Tulip Town owners he was on a “24-hour leash” while in the district, subject to being called back to the nation’s capital to vote on a negotiated COVID-19 bill.

That, of course, did not happen. Larsen instead had more time to visit with nearly two dozen of the 8,500 businesses in the district that received PPP loans, which the congressman said had rescued an estimated 60,000 jobs.

Campbell and Hedlin said much of their attention during the virus crisis has been directed toward measures preventing spread of COVID-19.

“We’re working real hard to be careful. The crew is doing a great job making sure the tractors are getting wiped down,” Hedlin said. “[And] The money circles right back. The money you put in a community comes back. It’s not like building a nuclear bomb and praying you don’t have to use it.”

The Hedlin family has farmed here for more than a century and today is a diversified enterprise including organically grown row crops, u-pick gardens, vegetable seed crops, greenhouses and the farm stand off Chilberg Road, the site of the meeting.

By contrast, Tulip Town is under new ownership. Larsen was met there by Andrew Miller and Angela Speer of the ownership team that purchased the bulb farm and garden center from the DeGoede family last year.

The two told Larsen PPP funds covered payroll at a critical time.

“We bought Tulip Town just after the Festival last year,” Miller said. “We were really counting on this year’s Festival.”

COVID-19 changed those plans.

The new Tulip Town partners shifted gears following the Festival’s cancellation. They marketed on-line specialty souvenirs, offered virtual tours of their colorful fields and devoted acreage to other crops such as barley, berries and pumpkins.

“We’re trying to be as innovative as possible,” Miller said.

Speer echoed that sentiment, telling Larsen that in response to COVID-19, Tulip Town is “willing to be innovative and use technology to create a safe experience.”

She said her team is fortunate to have benefitted from the foundation laid by the DeGoedes.

“We are standing on the shoulders of giants,” she said.

Speer stressed that Tulip Town wasn’t alone in having to adjust on the fly – aided by PPP and participating lenders – after the Tulip Festival was cancelled.

“The Festival is important to the farm,” she said, “but it brings millions of dollars to the Skagit Valley. It’s not just us.”

Miller sees good times ahead.

“We’ll be back super strong next year,” he vowed to Larsen.