Heartland
In The Community

Each year, Heartland has put on a customer appreciation event with a free meal served to our community, another free meal during our indoor sale, participation in the Chevy Youth Baseball and Hockey programs (donating $1000 each along with swag and gear) to our local programs, and most notably, the first annual Prairie Harvest Fest.

Each year, Heartland puts on several community focused events, such as the indoor sale in January featuring a free meal, a customer appreciation cookout in May, and a classic car show in September which includes activities for kids to make it a family event. We also do coloring contests around each holiday for the kids and hold trick-or-treating during Halloween, which brings about 250 kids per year. Attending all the surrounding area parades also keeps us busy almost every weekend in the summer. We collect toys for local families before Christmas, and generously donate to the KX92 Christmas Wish program. Heartland has positively impacted the diverse population of our area and also promoted the economic growth of Morris by bringing in people from all over the region, and our neighboring states. We also contribute to numerous events, clubs, organizations, and benefits throughout the year, not only in our town, but in the surrounding communities. People know they can count on Heartland for monetary or basket donations, as well as sponsorships of school athletics and functions, scoreboards, and community parks and fields.

Prairie Harvest Fest

In 2022, Dan announced that Heartland would be organizing and sponsoring a new festival to follow what was previously Prairie Pioneer Days. We took feedback from the community and renamed it Prairie Harvest Fest – A Celebration of Morris. The community was very excited, positive, and willing to help. Several businesses donated to help cover some of the costs, the tourism board assisted, and the next several months were spent planning and organizing. Since we host a classic car show at the dealership every year, this was a good event to wrap that into and move the car show to the fairgrounds for more space. The event superseded everyone’s expectations and hopes for the first year. People of all ages from all over MN and the Dakotas came out for an outdoor movie (which helped the movie theater profit more in a half hour than they do on a single weekend evening), games, bounce houses, a retail crawl, fireworks, craft vendors, a band, and the biggest car show we had yet, with about 120 cars. Food vendors were sold out by lunch, others had to get more food, the fairgrounds here in town were busy and there were positive comments all day long. Dan was awarded the Community Hero Award for this effort from the Minnesota Auto Dealer's Association.

 
Heartland is a third generation dealership, so it was our way of giving back to the community and keep the town festival going another year. In 2023, Heartland passed this event off to a group of volunteers who formed Prairie Harvest Fest, Inc., a MN 501c3 Non-Profit organization. The board has grown, and committees are busy making sure this festival is the best in the area and showcases Morris as a destination community, full of diverse culture and the best people in rural Minnesota. Join us at Prairie Harvest Fest during the last weekend in September each year!