Harvest for All

Iowa farmer Steve Anderegg has never met Dallas Clark, a spunky 4-year-old in Missouri who loves grape juice and chicken. But they are linked at America’s dinner table through a national network of sharing.

Anderegg, 35, helped collect 2.4 million pounds of food and $121,308 last year to feed the hungry as national chairman of the Young Farmers and Ranchers program of the American Farm Bureau Federation. Farm Bureau launched a "Harvest for All" campaign in 2003 in partnership with America’s Second Harvest—The Nation’s Food Bank Network, which serves 50,000 community agencies nationwide.

"We farmers truly believe it’s a tragedy that in this country, where we raise the most abundant and safest supply of food, people go hungry in our own backyard," says Anderegg, a fourth-generation farmer in Mason City, Iowa (pop. 29,172). "A lot of people need that little extra boost."

Dallas and her sister Terrinity, 6, and grandmother Becky Taylor are among the 23 million Americans who depend on extra help from America’s Second Harvest. Each month, Taylor and 350 families pick up groceries at Good Samaritan, a community pantry in a humble building just off the town square in Lamar, Mo. (pop. 4,425).

"With what they give you here, you can stretch it and make it last," says Taylor, 41, who worked as a dishwasher until suffering the first of four strokes last year. She and her granddaughters live on $292 a month in government assistance and $400 in food stamps.

"I get vegetables here. Sometimes they’ve got meat," Taylor says. "I don’t know what we’d do without them."

Rural poverty

Across rural America in the midst of some of the richest farmland, poverty is increasing the fastest, says Robert Forney, president and CEO of America’s Second Harvest. Nationwide, 34 million Americans don’t have enough to eat, and 15 percent of those served by America’s Second Harvest live in rural areas. The poverty rate for rural children is 19 percent, compared to 15 percent for urban children.

"It’s a serious unseen problem," Forney says. "Americans care deeply about their neighbors, but poverty is generally a private experience. It isn’t talked about. The problem can be invisible."

The working poor make up the biggest group seeking help at the network’s food pantries, soup kitchens and emergency shelters for battered women and the homeless.

"The majority are employed and go through life facing serious decisions: rent or food, utilities or food, transportation or food," Forney says. "You can elect not to eat, but you can’t elect not to pay your mortgage."

Raising awareness of the hunger problem, along with food and funds, is the mission of Harvest for All, led by America’s first harvesters—farmers who produce the nation’s food supply—and America’s Second Harvest.

"We’re terrific partners," Forney says. "We have a common objective to use food that otherwise might go to waste."

Waste not, want not

Nationwide, Young Farmers and Ranchers are spreading the "waste not, want not" message. In California, the group salvaged 600,000 pounds of perishable fruits and vegetables last year to give to the needy.

"As the price of commodities came down and farmers couldn’t make a profit, we talked them into donating commodities—lots of squash and broccoli and cauliflower," says Sarah Mora, 31, program director for California Farm Bureau’s Young Farmers and Ranchers.

With its elaborate distribution network, America’s Second Harvest can act quickly to collect, refrigerate and redistribute perishable food. The very heart of the program is taking the overabundance in one region of the country and moving it to another region where it is needed, Forney says.

"In the summertime, in northwest Michigan, they have plenty of cherries, but on that same day in New York City, there are literally hundreds and thousands of people who could use those cherries," Forney says.

Rebecca Ferrari, 24, sales manager at Babe Farms in Santa Maria, Calif. (pop. 77,423), and chairman of the Santa Barbara County Young Farmers and Ranchers, telephones farmers to seek donations of produce that are on the brink of perishing.

"We’ll pick it up and take it to the food bank in Santa Maria," she says. Volunteers solicit surplus fruits and vegetables from produce packinghouses year-round, but they made an extra push last November and collected 6,000 turkeys for Thanksgiving dinners.

Elsewhere, Georgia Farm Bureau members filled 600 grocery sacks with 8,000 pounds of staples, such as rice, cereal, and macaroni and cheese, and delivered them to the food bank in Macon last October.

"We were overwhelmed by the response," says Bob Ragsdale, assistant director of field services for Georgia Farm Bureau. The regional food bank was running low after helping hurricane victims, and October traditionally is a slim time for contributions.

By the bushel

Last summer, Casey Schlichting, 27, a district Young Farmers and Ranchers representative from Mason City, Iowa, found a creative way to spread the message about hunger in America. He drove his 1961 John Deere tractor in a vintage tractor parade across northern Iowa and pulled a food trailer. Along the 160-mile route, he collected 700 pounds of food and $1,300. At the end of the drive in Clear Lake, Iowa (pop. 8,161), Manufacturers Bank and Trust Co. matched the cash donations.

"The time it takes to help out is minimal," says Schlichting, one of hundreds of Young Farmers and Ranchers nationwide who volunteered 4,487 hours last year at soup kitchens, emergency shelters and food pantries.

This fall, Schlichting plans to visit grain elevators to launch a "by-the-bushel" donation program for farmers to raise more money to feed the hungry. "After you get done at the end of the day, are you really going to miss 50 bushels of corn?" he asks.

In Kansas, Shawna Blanka, 35, a fourth-generation farmer in St. Francis (pop. 1,497) who chaired the Kansas Young Farmers and Ranchers last year, wants to start a similar donation program for wheat farmers. Bushels donated could be turned into cash or loaves of bread for food banks. The Kansas group collected 770 pounds of food and $589 last year for Harvest for All.

Sharing the bounty

Providing meals for America’s hungry families is becoming tougher because of growing needs. At St. Susanne Catholic Church in Mount Vernon, Mo. (pop. 4017), director Joan Ross says that sometimes 15 to 20 cars are lined up waiting for the doors to open.

"People get laid off and have no income," Ross says. "Some are disabled or just can’t get a good-paying job. We have a lot of elderly people."

The pantry serves 300 families a month, including Shirley and Robert Karch of Mount Vernon, who work as school and hospital cooks and have three teenage boys.

"I make menus, and I just buy what I think will feed us. I buy the best bargains," says Shirley, 43. Even so, the family depends on the boxes of groceries—containing bread, peanut butter, canned meats and vegetables—provided by St. Susanne’s.

"It helps us stretch the food," Shirley says. "It’s kind of hard. You’ve got kids in high school and they eat a lot."

Steve Anderegg, who spearheaded the national 2004 Harvest for All campaign, believes there is room for everyone to share the bounty at America’s dinner table.

"If you want to help, stop at your local Farm Bureau office and donate a couple of dollars or canned goods," he says. "We can end hunger here and then abroad."

America’s Second Harves - The nation’s largest hunger-relief organization

For 25 years, the mission of America’s Second Harvest has been to create a hunger-free America.  It distributes food and grocery products in every county in the United States through a network of more than 200 certified food banks and food-rescue organizations. Its mission also is to increase public awareness of domestic hunger, and to advocate policies that benefit America’s hungry.

For more information on the Young Farmers and Ranchers program, call (202) 406-3642 or log on to www.secondharvest.com.

Marti Attoun is a frequent American Profile contributor.

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