Fruits of their labor: Students harvest for OC Food Bank
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Westminster High Principal Amy Sabol greeted her students with a cowboy hat, plaid shirt, boots and a smile on Wednesday morning.
“Happy Harvest Day!” she exclaimed as the teenagers paraded through the Giving Farm field behind the school, watermelons in hand.
“It’s really become quite an incredible tradition here at Westminster High School,” Sabol said. “We have an exit interview at the end of every year for our senior class, and I’d say overwhelmingly, one of their more meaningful memories they have during their four years at Westminster is our annual harvest. It is really rewarding.”
The ninth annual watermelon harvest at the Community Action Partnership of Orange County Giving Farm showed students what life on the farm, located directly behind campus and next to the 405 Freeway, could be like. They picked up pre-cut melons and transported them to large bins, then got to enjoy the fruits of their labor by tasting large chunks of the melons.
The watermelons, like all of the food grown at the farm, goes to the OC Food Bank in Garden Grove, another CAP OC program. Each year, more than 200,000 pounds of fresh produce is grown and donated.
That goes back to the warehouse, where it is distributed to a network of more than 240 partner agencies to help nourish families across Orange County, said Hiram Rodriguez, associate director of OC Food Bank operations.
September is Hunger Action Month, a national campaign led by Feeding America.
Rodriguez said that CAP OC tries to involve students in the Giving Farm as much as possible. On Wednesday, students in the Westminster chapter of Future Farmers of America program helped move the process along.
“Things like this are great because the whole school comes out,” Rodriguez said. “It’s one of the rare times when all of the students from the entire school get to come out, learn about agriculture, learn about how this food is going back to the community and people in need.”
Administrators and trustees from the Huntington Beach Union High School District, including Supt. Carolee Ogata, were also present to support the watermelon harvest.
Eddie Ito, a third-generation farmer who manages the eight-acre farm, said the harvest had to be moved up more than a week due to the recent hot and humid weather conditions.
The Giving Farm is also known for harvesting strawberries and other fruits, from persimmons to pomegranates to dragonfruit. It also produces butternut squash, a fall favorite.
“It’s great to get the kids out here and get them involved,” said Ito, who grew up in Westminster. “Everything goes back to the food bank. Probably some of the parents here go to the food bank; it’s a low-income area. So, it’s great for them to understand what we’re doing here.”
Yaretzi Casiano, a Westminster senior in the FFA program, was happy to help with the watermelon harvest. She hopes to continue in agriculture as a career, working with livestock as a veterinarian.
“I think it’s a great opportunity,” Casiano said of the watermelon harvest. “We’re the only [school] with a farm in the district. It’s much bigger than what it seems like.”
Also as part of Hunger Action Month, Canstruction Orange County at South Coast Plaza is transforming canned and packaged food into large-scale artistic structures created by local teams. Visitors can vote for their favorite designs for $1 per vote, with proceeds benefiting the OC Food Bank. At the end of the month, all of the food used in the structures will be donated to help feed local families.
