Vegetables Bound for Military Families

Radicchio for raw recruits?

Arugula for the artillery?

Fancy greens might be a bit much for government work, but the veggies provided in a program called “Operation Salad for Soldiers” should provide down-home nutrition to strapped military families along the California coast.

Bonita Packing, a Santa Maria vegetable firm, is donating 15 tons of lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli and beans to families from Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc to Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego. “We figured this was the least we could do as Americans,” said Stan Otremba, the Bonita harvest manager behind the green giveaway.

A helping hand with food bills is all the more important to military families when a member is deployed. Because military personnel in Iraq eat meals provided by the government, their families lose a source of income -- the stipend given to service members who eat at home instead of in mess halls.

That amounts to a loss of $50 to $60 a month -- even after extra pay for overseas deployments, said Seabees Master Chief Don Fuller.

In Ventura County, the windfall from Bonita was stored in huge cooling lockers in an Oxnard food bank on Friday morning. About 48 bags of veggies were distributed on the base by a volunteer named Tillie Ahearn, but the bulk will be handed out next week, said Jim Mangis, director of Food Share of Ventura County.

“Enlisted families really need the help,” he said. “They make a low wage, but their situation isn’t a lot different than the one faced by people all over the county in entry-level jobs.”

Bonita Packing’s Otremba said about 6,000 families will benefit from food picked Thursday and sent out Friday. Bags were intended for Marine families at Camp Pendleton in addition to families at Vandenberg, Naval Base Ventura County and Miramar.

Bonita, a family-owned company, harvests its vegetables from 12,000 acres in Santa Barbara County, the Central Valley community of Huron and Yuma, Ariz.

Overseeing a lettuce harvest in Yuma two weeks ago, Otremba said he was moved after watching a TV news report on the financial hardships of military families. “I figured there just had to be something we could do,” he said.

His bosses quickly approved the idea, and local farm bureaus helped sort out the distribution details. If all goes well, the effort might expand to include other packers that have expressed interest and might branch as far away as Louisiana, he said.