Nonprofit Fights Hunger, One Head of Lettuce at a Time

Corinne Speckert - Santa Cruz Sentinel Correspondent

Article Launched: 07/27/2008 12:00:00 AM PDT


Ag Against Hunger, a nonprofit that works to collect leftover crops from commercial harvests, worked with 30 volunteers at the Santa Maria Ranch in Watsonville, collecting 4,800 to 5,000 pounds of lettuce Saturday to help feed the hungry.


The nonprofit has been providing produce to food banks in Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties for the past 18 years, keeping food banks such as Grey Bears and Second Harvest stocked, to ensure that every income level gets their five servings of vegetables and fruit a day.

"There are a lot of hungry people right here in our own area," said Ananda Jimenez, volunteer coordinator for Ag Against Hunger. "One in five families in this tri-county area is food insecure, which means they might have to make the choice of buying healthy food or mac 'n' cheese. This is helping low-income people to have a healthy diet."

About 77,000 pounds of produce were collected last year, and this year, Ag Against Hunger hoped to collect close to 100,000.

"This is such an important part of the nation's bread basket," said volunteer Chris O'Connor of Carmel Valley while pointing to a truck full of baskets of lettuce. "You get out and you pick in the fields and you have such a better appreciation for all the produce you see in the grocery store. I couldn't imagine that everything on that truck would be dirt on Monday. If this didn't get picked by the volunteers today then the machines would come over and harvest new [produce] over it."

Of all the produce collected, food banks within the tri-county have first dibs and the remainder is then distributed to surrounding counties and rural areas. About 300 volunteers with Ag Against Hunger make several trips a month to various farms to continue providing food to the needy.

"This should be a requirement for every kid that goes to school in Monterey County," O'Connor said.