IRVINE : Volunteers Glean Food From Fields

Before the sun broke through the morning clouds Wednesday, volunteers from the Irvine Gleaning Task Force took over a field of zucchini on a mission to feed the hungry.

For two hours, they picked over vegetables that on Tuesday were rejected by field workers and that today would have been plowed under when a tractor turned the field over to prepare for a new crop.

The small group is responsible for most of the fresh produce received by the Food Distribution Center in Orange, which serves 125 soup kitchens and other agencies for the needy in Orange County, said Donna Hempe-Gray, the center’s warehouse manager.

“I don’t know the total number of people that are served, but there are 320,000 individuals (in the county) at risk of going hungry each month,” Hempe-Gray said.

Every Wednesday, the “gleaners” pick perfectly good but unmarketable vegetables for the center. Farmer A.G. Kawamura, whose vegetable fields have been picked over by the gleaners for three years, explained that consumers settle for nothing but the best in the grocery stores, so that is all he is able to sell.

“There are some farmers who haven’t participated in the program, but they have been sorting it as they harvest and then donate that,” said task force coordinator Charlene Turco. Since January, the Irvine gleaners have picked 45,000 pounds of food, Turco said. The Food Distribution Center weighs each load and sends receipts to the farmers for a tax credit.

The volunteers are allowed to take home a bag or two of the produce they pick, but they cite other incentives for their work as well.

“The weather is usually nice, you get good fresh air, exercise and, incidentally, we help some people,” said Ron Voigt, 60, of Irvine.

Voigt, a retired aerospace executive, filled crate after crate with zucchini, lugging them to the end of the field and returning with empty ones to refill. He marveled at the quality of the “discards” he was picking.

“Even our crummy stuff is good,” he said.

Florence Yen, 74, wrapped her hands in a gauze bandage, leaving her fingers free to touch the squash while protecting her hands from the prickly plants. She and her husband Charles, 72, have been gleaning since last September, picking everything from cabbage to squash. They have even picked bok choy, a Chinese cabbage that the center asked the gleaners to stop sending.

“They didn’t know how to eat it, so we only picked it once,” she said.

Nancy Kawamura, another organizer of the project, wants to recruit more volunteers to reduce the waste and add to the Food Distribution Center’s fresh food load.

“There’s just an abundance of food that doesn’t get picked, it breaks your heart,” she said.