Working for their supper

Fourth-graders from Andersen Elementary School in Newport Beach on Wednesday rolled up their sleeves and picked cauliflower, onions and radishes to honor Cesar Chavez on his birthday.

The purpose of the picking at the Incredible Edible Park in Irvine, which was organized by Volunteer Center Orange County, was to show the fourth-graders the amount of physical labor that goes into putting vegetables on the supper table.

And their hard work would help feed the region’s residents with fresh produce. All the vegetables they picked were quickly boxed and shipped to Orange County’s Second Harvest Food Bank.

“Cesar Chavez Day gives us a chance to work hard to help those in need, just like Cesar Chavez did for his whole life,” said Keely Blissmer, 10.

Chavez was a labor leader and civil rights activist who changed the face of farming in California.

“We are here to help people in need by picking crops that they can eat,” said Emma Daniel, 9.

According to Kathie Monroe, spokeswoman for the Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, 615,000 people are at risk of hunger in Orange County, which means, she said, that “they miss at least one vital meal a day.”

“And we’re not talking about, ‘Oh, I missed lunch because I was too busy,’” she said. “This is much, much more.”

One in four children, she added, go hungry each day in Orange County as well.

“I think it’s a great thing that these kids go out to the Incredible Edible Park, and they’re learning about where the food comes from,” Monroe said. “And we always use it. The food they pick is nutritious. It supplements the nonperishables that we typically collect and hand out.”

Monroe said a lot of poor people in Orange County aren’t able to buy fresh vegetables because they’re too expensive, especially if their economic means are limited.

The farm, with nearly 8 acres, isn’t the only program that helps the hungry by planting fruit and vegetables, Monroe said.

Through Grocery Rescue and Fresh Rescue the food bank visits grocery stores and collects the meat, dairy, food and vegetables just as they reach their expiration dates, Monroe said.

Chavez, whose birthday is considered a state holiday, knew what it was like to go hungry.

Not only was he born into poverty in Yuma, Ariz., on March 31, 1927, but he also staged famous fasts while trying to bargain for the rights of thousands of farm workers in California and Texas — from the 1950s until his death April 23, 1993.

Often, the fasts worked. They drew attention to the cause.

He was against the use of pesticides, a campaign that was famously dubbed “Uvas No,” or “No grapes” — in which he called for boycotts of all sorts of agricultural products, particularly grapes.

He also coined the phrase, “Si se puede,” or “Yes, we can,” which the Obama campaign picked up in its bid for the presidency.

State Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, a San Francisco Bay Area Democrat, recalled Chavez’s humility when he met the activist in the early 1990s.

“You could see the humility in his eyes,” said Torrico, 41. “It was amazing that after all these accomplishments he had and after all the accolades, that he was still humble.”