Big Producer
After a frantic hour of collecting release forms, handing out knives and instructing dozens of volunteers in the art of harvesting celery stalks, Chuck Brain breathed deeply, stepped back and scanned the lush greenery in front of him.
“Nothing prettier than a field of celery,” said Brain, planting a pair of thick hands on his hips and letting a warm, heartfelt smile spread across his face. “Everyone who comes out here loves it. You just can’t help but love it. What could be better than this?”
For 11 years, Brain has been getting his feet dirty and his hands calloused by volunteering for Orange County Harvest, a group that picks leftover crops from local farms--a practice known as gleaning--and donates them to charity.
From an occasional gleaner, Brain, now 72, worked his way into the heart of the organization.
“He’s single-handedly kept this thing alive all these years,” said A.G. Kawamura, the Irvine farmer who started Orange County Harvest and who donates much of the farmland used by the group.
Added Dianne Kawamura, A.G.’s wife and Harvest executive director for the past two years, “We wouldn’t be able to function without him.”
These days, Brain directs traffic, coaches volunteers in cutting techniques and answers a torrent of questions at the group’s once-a-month Sunday harvest, which draws several hundred pickers and usually fills two trucks sent by the Second Harvest food bank.
On Wednesdays, he meets a smaller group of about 15 volunteers, mostly seniors, who pick crops for a few hours and then carry the produce to charities of their choosing. “I’m the designated straw boss,” he said with a laugh. “We have a lot fun. We all know each other pretty well by now.”
Brain, who lives in Placentia, brings his crates of vegetables to the Fullerton Interfaith Emergency Service program, where they supplement the usual fare of canned food, dried rice and beans. “When you’re poor and you get emergency food from an organization like us, fresh produce is exciting,” said operations manager April Johnen. “Our clients appreciate that, and they go for it. Nothing goes to waste.”
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Johnen said Brain is a familiar and welcome face at the food program. “He’s really a nice, caring kind of guy,” she said. “In fact, Chuck’s whole family has that sense of giving and caring. One of his granddaughters had a birthday party, and she had the idea to collect canned food [from party guests] and bring it to us.”
A former computer programmer, Brain said he wanted to do some kind of charity work after he retired at 62 but didn’t want to take on a full-time job. Above all, he said, he didn’t want to be stuck behind a desk.
Then he saw a news story about Orange County Harvest. The next day--11 years ago--he signed up for his first gleaning. “I remember we picked squash, and I loved it,” he said. “I was outside, learning a new skill.”
Brain hadn’t set foot on a farm since he was 7 years old, but he was a quick study. Many Wednesday mornings, he picked crops near men who made their livings at the work. He studied their efficient movements, admired their strength, and his picking speed improved greatly. But he still speaks with awe of the professionals who fill boxes at more than twice his speed.
“They can stand like this for hours,” he said, hunched over in a squat. “I’m up to an hour, but that’s it.”
One recent Sunday afternoon, Brain stationed his tan Mitsubishi pickup next to a row of eucalyptus trees, staked out an Orange County Harvest banner and waited for the traffic. Shortly after noon, the volunteers began to arrive: a parade of cars, trucks and vans, kicking up clouds of dust on the rutted dirt road.
Church members, kids from scout troops, a whole platoon of young Indian Guides from the YMCA. They piled out, lugging old laundry baskets and paint buckets and looked around for a leader. And they found Brain, standing next to his truck, handing out produce knives and stopping every few minutes to demonstrate celery cutting technique.
“Cut it at the bottom like this,” he said, digging into a stalk where it met the soil. “Then cut off some of the leaves. That helps keep it fresh.”
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Orange County Harvest had planned to pick cabbages that morning from a field that already was harvested commercially, but recent rains made access impossible. So the group switched gears and, out of grant money, paid Kawamura his cost for several rows of celery.
“We’re really harvesting now instead of gleaning,” said Diane Kawamura. “In the winter, we don’t have many crops here in Orange County, and celery is at a premium, so we have to pay the farmer his costs.”
About 250 volunteers swarmed onto the celery field, and it fell to Brain to keep them within the designated area. “These rows only, folks,” he said, fixing a smile on a few volunteers who ventured too far.
The crisp, pungent smell of trampled celery and damp earth filled the air. Brain jogged forward and back, riding herd on the volunteers, thanking folks for coming, and, now and then, making a point to stop and take it all in.
Brain, who also puts in a few hours a week helping weed and garden at his granddaughter’s elementary school in Placentia, said he gets as much out of his volunteer time as the people who eat his vegetables.
“Anybody that retires and is healthy should get involved in some kind of charity work,” he said. “If everybody went out and helped somebody else, we’d have a much better world.”