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hometownsource. com / heartland / Stories of the Heartland • Sunday, September 20, 2026 Page 7
porting it.
When growth became weight From the outside, Fish Sunflowers appeared to be thriving. Thousands of visitors filled the fields. Photographs spread across social media. Businesses and landowners wanted to participate. Other communities asked for fields of their own.
Behind the scenes, Johnny and Sarah were carrying much of the financial and physical burden.
Fish Sunflowers had not been organized as a nonprofit. The Olsons did not charge admission and were not making money from the crowds.
“ We were essentially volunteering,” Johnny said.“ Volunteering our fuel, our equipment, our time. We poured savings and 401( k) s into it just to keep it going. People assumed we were making money off all this, but we weren’ t. It was the opposite.”
The expenses continued whether a field succeeded or failed.
There was fuel to buy, equipment to maintain and transport, seed to purchase and land to prepare. Weather added another layer of uncertainty.
A field could be planted and tended, only to be lost to drought, weeds, wildlife or poor growing conditions. In 2021, a field near Zimmerman was among those lost to drought.
During one season, Johnny said, the Olsons helped oversee as many as 16 locations, but only a handful produced successful fields.
Distance made the work more difficult. The Olsons depended on property owners, volunteers and local partners to help manage sites, and some of those relationships became strained.
“ Some of the very people we trusted started running with it like it was theirs,” Johnny said.“ We had locations putting out donation boxes with our name and look, creating their own logos, keeping the donations, even using our props. Meanwhile, we were trying to hold everything together from a distance.”
Criticism and misunderstandings followed. Some people assumed the size of the crowds meant the Olsons were making substantial profits. They were not.“ It did bring us almost to ruin,” Sarah said.“ Financially, emotionally— we were not prepared for how big it got, or for the criticism and the difficulties that came with it.” Eventually, the public fields stopped. For several years, Fish Sunflowers did not open a field to visitors. Stepping away gave Johnny and Sarah time to consider what had happened and whether the mission could
Jeffrey Hage / Stories of the Heartland
Two young girls play in a Fish Sunflowers sunflower field on the northeast side of Monticello.
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