Text and photos by Hannah Miller
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The five men and one woman bent over rows of Haywood County peppers one bright morning last September were working so that others living near them might eat. As the sun shone on Cold Mountain looming above them, these volunteers for the Society of St. Andrew picked bucket after bucket of ripe bell peppers, a total of 48 bushels by the end of the morning.
“Bill Bumgardner and Johnny Rose got me into this,” said retired waitress Jean Nunnery of Canton, referring to a fellow picker and an absent friend.
But there was seriousness, too. “I just like to help people,” said Joe Cassada, retired as a North Carolina Department of Revenue officer for Haywood and Jackson counties. “I think that’s our mission in life.”
The pickers, all Haywood County retirees, were part of the national Society of St. Andrew’s ongoing effort to gather produce left in fields after commercial harvest. What voluteers pick goes to feed the hungry in their areas.
In North Carolina in 2008, 689 farms hosted 11, 270 gleaners, who picked 4.7 million pounds of produce ranging from beans to berries. Another 1.3 million pounds, largely potatoes, was contributed in truckloads by farmers clearing their warehouses or seeking an outlet for unsold goods. Farmers get a state tax credit for food donation, but more importantly, says Western North Carolina coordinator Bill Walker, their generosity “helps a lot of people.”
In Haywood County that day, pickers besides Walker, Nunnery, Cassada and Rose included Fred Russell of Canton, retired from a manufacturing company, and Charles Williamson, director of faith-based nondenominational Rose of Sharon Mission. The mission truck, parked at the end of the rows while the gleaners picked, would take the day’s haul to its Canton warehouse for distribution to individuals and hunger-fighting agencies.
Plates filled by the gleaners frequently include those of children at Broyhill Homes in Canton, homeless people served by the Open Door organization in Waynesville, diners at local churches’ Community Kitchen in Canton, and food-bank clients of Haywood County Christian Ministry as well as Rose of Sharon.
The pickings were good that September morning in Haywood EMC member Skipper Russell’s field. Rose of Sharon’s truck driver, retired electrician Eddie Smathers, repeatedly emptied ¾-bushel buckets loaded with peppers into the truck’s bins. “We can fill a basket here in 15 minutes,” observed Rose.
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