Students Pluck Lemons in a Sweet Gesture

With the light, sharp scent of lemons filling the air, Cal Lutheran University junior Jenny Garrido reached into a tree, plucking fruit.

She and 15 other students and staff from the Thousand Oaks school had arrived at a small Camarillo lemon orchard early Thursday morning to collect food for the hungry. The fruit they picked, donated by the orchard’s owner, would go to a local food bank for distribution throughout the county.

Garrido had never harvested lemons before.

“When you drive up the 101, you’re not going to see the fields in the same way again,” she said.

The collection effort, called “Gleaning of the Fields,” began last year as a way for university students to help the hungry. Organized by the university’s Global Peace and Justice program, the harvest also gives student volunteers a chance to learn firsthand how fruits come in from the fields.

“They don’t just fall into a bucket and make it to a grocery store the next day,” said sophomore Lara Philby.

The student pickers slowly worked their way through the lemon grove near Marine View Drive, twisting the fruit to remove it from its stem. They hauled white buckets full of ripe lemons back to a flatbed truck parked in the orchard and dumped the produce into large plastic bins.

Once the students had finished, the lemons would go to the Oxnard warehouse of FOOD Share. The food bank provides fresh produce and packaged foods to 256 Ventura County pantries, churches and other agencies helping the hungry, said FOOD Share’s resource developer, Anthoula Sullivan.

The food bank depends on local growers for its fresh produce supply, Sullivan said.

“We wouldn’t be able to supply all the county if it wasn’t for the farmers,” she said.

After several hours of picking, the students had collected 1,143 pounds of lemons for the food bank.

Laurie Segal, a senior, said the chance to do something tangible to help others was part of the reason she volunteered for the event.

“It makes me feel a lot better than just sitting at home and letting everything come to me,” she said.