Surplus From Area Fields Fills Shelves of Pantries

CAMARILLO — Avocados, artichokes, broccoli, strawberries, grapefruit. Much of the produce that is distributed through the Camarillo food pantries comes from neighboring orchards and fields.

Rather than simply discarding the produce that isn’t harvested, growers donate it to Food Share, Ventura County’s regional food bank. But how it actually gets from fields into the grocery bags of the needy is the key.

Several times a week, Food Share volunteers meet at 8 a.m. at a designated spot and carpool through the mountains and valleys of the county to where the produce lies.

The gleaners, as they are called, pick the extra produce, which is then taken back to Food Share’s headquarters in Oxnard and sold to the county’s food pantries, like Jehovah Jireh on Mobile Avenue.

“It’s giving something back,” said Jim Wood, who has volunteered with Food Share since 1989 when he retired from Hughes Research Laboratory. “Life has been pretty good to me and it hasn’t been good to a whole lot of people, so I feel that I owe them. When you see hungry kids, then anything you can do to alleviate it is worth it.”

Wood supervised a crew of gleaners recently in a grapefruit orchard off Upland and Wharton roads that took in over 2,000 pounds of the bittersweet citrus. Most of the Camarillo crew are senior citizens from that area and make early morning produce runs several times a week.

John Kwolek, 60, who has lived in Camarillo for 24 years and is a retired Navy supply officer from Port Hueneme, has been a gleaner for seven years.

“And I’m the baby of the bunch--there’s people out here in their 70s and 80s and our oldest one is 97,” Kwolek said. “It goes for a good purpose .”

Surrounded by an orchard of grapefruit, with ostriches and horses as the backdrop, Leonard Rosenthal, 76, said he’s been picking the orchards and fields since he retired from his collection agency in 1984 and moved to Leisure Village, Camarillo’s gated retirement community.

“One of the guys in Leisure Village got me into it,” Rosenthal said. “I go out three or four times a week. It’s a way to help people and get exercise.”

Ben Poteet, 80, a retired carpenter from Camarillo, has been volunteering for Food Share since he first heard about the organization three years ago.

“It gets me up in the morning and I’m helping someone out--it’s probably the best volunteer work I’ve ever done,” Poteet said.

Whether it’s the satisfaction of helping others or the physical exertion, field coordinator John VanBuskirk said he has a full crew of volunteers.

“Food Share has more than 200 gleaners who come out up to five times a week to help,” said the retired Point Mugu naval engineer who has been with Food Share for eight years. “It’s a good feeling to see all these people and to be here myself.”

To volunteer for Food Share, call 983-7100.