All the talk these days about supply chain disruption has no place in Dave and Pat Farr’s backyard.
The Mission Viejo couple have their own mini-supply chain, one that works without a hitch in delivering excess fruit from trees to the food pantry run by South County Outreach in Irvine.
For the past five years, the Farrs, their son Mike, some neighbors, and missionaries who volunteer as pickers, have worked together to provide oranges, grapefruits, tangerines, lemons and limes annually for distribution to needy folks.
This year’s haul from their group: About 2,500 pounds of fruit that Dave Farr estimated was worth more than $7,000.
The enterprise is fueled by the Farrs’ faith — they are devout members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — and the generosity of their neighbors. Mike Farr handles delivery. He visits his elderly parents regularly and is more than happy to load up his white Avalon with as many as eight cardboard boxes of donated fruit, no matter the cost of a gallon of gas.
Dave Farr, who started the neighborhood operation, is hoping to inspire others who want to launch their own produce drives, whether they’re members of his church, people in other faith groups, community service clubs, or simply interested in helping to address local food needs.
To Farr, it’s a supply chain that gives something to all involved, including those doing the giving.
“It gets people out, forgetting about themselves and serving,” Farr said. “It’s what the savior taught us to do, feed the hungry.”
It’s also healthier for the trees to have their fruit picked when it’s ready rather than letting it fall to the ground.
The Farrs have lived in their home, on Campesino, since the tract was built in 1976. In addition to five citrus trees, they have a peach tree. As the Farrs got older and less mobile (Dave is 83, Pat is 82 and needs a walker), and their four children grew up and moved out, more and more fruit was going unpicked and uneaten, falling to the ground only to rot.
Harvesting backyard fruit on the scale of what the Farrs and their support group manage doesn’t take a lot beyond access to the fruit, and someone to harvest and deliver it. Empty cardboard delivery boxes can be obtained for free from grocery stores. Then there are a few necessary tools – fruit picking tools that can extend up to 25 feet, pruners, gardening gloves able to withstand sharp citrus thorns, safety goggles and long-sleeve shirts.
A ladder can help, but with the long-pole fruit pickers a ladder might not be necessary. Plus, in Farr’s mind, it’s safer to pick fruit with your feet planted on the ground.
Harvest time generally runs from January to April. Farr is encouraging anyone who might want to organize a fruit-picking project to start now on logistics — who will donate, who will pick, who will deliver and where. He’s trying to help organize more efforts involving Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints churches in Orange County, and recommends congregants contact their local ward if they want help from the missionaries.
South County Outreach has a contact person, Floridel Martinez, they want people to get in touch with first before making a donation, at fmartinez@sco-oc.org or by calling 949-380-8144.
Farr is able to recruit the necessary fruit picking staff from his church. As part of their assignments, while visiting communities far from their homes, the young missionaries are asked to donate 10 hours a week of local service. They work in pairs.
“They simply love doing it, knowing they are helping the homeless and hungry,” Farr said.
South County Outreach appreciates the donation. The nonprofit emphasizes getting fresh produce to its clients. In addition to the fruit dropped off by Mike Farr, other home gardeners bring donations from their vegetable patches.
“We just see it as another way for families to support their neighbors, and other families, with fresh fruits and vegetables that they need to make nutritious meals,” said LaVal Brewer, president and chief executive officer of South County Outreach.
But volume and timing are crucial, Brewer added. Too much fruit, contributed just as it is starting to become overripe, can be a headache.
“If we get 500 oranges, great, as long as it’s not at the end of shelf life. Then I have 500 flies.”
They don’t get a lot of citrus fruit donations, but Brewer said limes are by far the most popular when they land on the food pantry shelves. Since the recent relaxation of some COVID-19 restrictions, clients are again allowed to pick and bag the foods they want, just like at a grocery. In addition to limes, lemons also are popular, largely because of their use in food preparation.
“They’ll go,” Brewer said.
Andy Hall, a neighbor who lives around the corner from the Farrs, contributes oranges and limes from his backyard. Farr had been out on one of his neighborhood walks a few years ago and mentioned his budding produce drive during a casual chat. Hall is glad to see the excess that his family of four can’t eat go to someone else.
“It’s just way too much,” he said.
But, Hall confessed, he tends to keep more of his limes than his oranges.
“Sometimes,” he said, laughing,” we need them for drinks.” He notes that some limes go to his father-in-law’s annual ski trip with buddies. “I think he makes a lot of margaritas.”
This year’s harvest happened at a time when missionaries Mo Johnson, of Highland, Utah, and Mackenzie Lamb, of San Antonio, Texas, are in south Orange County. Both in their early 20s, they said they’ve never seen the abundance of fruit trees like they have here.
“It’s too cold in Utah,” Johnson said.
“It’s too rocky in Texas,” Lamb added.
Johnson also picked up a new skill. During an afternoon visit with the Farrs, she tosses three grapefruits into the air.
“I’m learning how to juggle.”
Because of his age, Dave Farr stops short of the physical labor involved in fruit picking. But he and his wife have another important role in the backyard supply chain.
“We stand back and cheer.”
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