More than 100 homeowners in the community donate their backyard fruit to feed the hungry, says Joni Diserens, executive director of Village Harvest, a San Jose-based nonprofit agency that harvests and accepts fruit throughout Santa Clara County. The 4-year-old organization distributes the food to the needy through such partner agencies as the Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties.

"Most of them are repeat donors," Diserens says. "Willow Glen homeowners regularly harvest their smaller trees and take it to the food bank themselves."

Lois Hagebush, who has lived on Andalusia Way for 20 years, is one of those givers. Since Village Harvest started in 2001, the retired secretary has donated more than 4,000 pounds of fruit from her lemon and orange trees. In March of this year, volunteers from Village Harvest harvested 540 pounds of oranges and 510 pounds of lemons from Hagebush's two trees.

"For me, it's really a good situation," Hagebush says. "I don't have dead oranges on my lawn. A lot of times, the fruits go into the garbage and that's such a waste. Now something good is being done with it. There are so many people in the valley who need food."

Hagebush found out about Village Harvest four years ago when she called Second Harvest to ask what she could do about the avalanche of fruit her trees were producing.

Hagebush's call for help came after trying to solve the problem on her own.

When she first moved into her three-bedroom house, she tried juicing all the oranges she had. "It took a long time to juice all the oranges and after all that work, I didn't like the taste because it would freeze in the fridge," she says. "I decided I wasn't going to do it anymore."

When she was working at General Electric, she would also take bags to her office or give the fruits to her family and friends at church.

"I also ended up throwing a lot of them away. They would drop off the trees and there would be bugs in them," she adds.

While Hagebush has picked some of the fruit and brought it to the food bank before, she says it's difficult to pick hundreds of oranges and lemons, pack them in boxes and haul them to the food bank all by herself.

Going up on a ladder to pick fruit is a tricky balancing act, she says. "You're on a ladder and you have to have one bag in hand unless you want to throw it on the ground and risk bruising it. I don't want to fall off and break a bone."

This is why Hagebush considers Village Harvest a win-win for everyone. When Village Harvest comes, it can take practically everything because the organization has a big truck and can haul huge quantities at one time.

Hagebush relies on the nonprofit to harvest her fruits once a year. Before her Media Way neighbor Elvera Hughes died at age 94 last year, the two women would time their harvests so volunteers came out once to glean the fruit from both homes. The other aspect of the organization that Hagebush appreciates is the professionalism of the volunteers.

"They are always here on time," she says. "They get the job done in two or three hours. They clean up after themselves and they don't do any damage to the trees."

Village Harvest works with a core group of about 50 to 100 volunteers who visit different homes in the Santa Clara Valley to pick fruit when homeowners call, Diserens says.

Volunteers leave the family all the fruit they request and harvest everything else. They fill white buckets half full of fruit until the trees are bare and then sort the fruit. Slightly under-ripe fruit is donated to the organization and Village Harvest also uses a small portion of the donated fruit to make jams and jellies that are sold to fund administrative costs.

Willow Glen resident Kathy Zwern, who has been donating fruit from her backyard for the past three years, has nothing but praise for the organization. Zwern, who lives on Coastland Avenue, has a small orchard in her backyard with orange, fig, lemon, persimmon, cherry, Santa Rosa plum and almond trees.

Like Hagebush, Zwern and her husband have been donating fruit from their trees to Village Harvest for three years. It helps keep her trees healthy and prevents her two young children, Ariana, 4 and Jayden, 2, from picking up rotten fruit on the ground and eating it, says Zwern, who donates about 100 pounds of fruit each year.

In the past, she used to fill a five-gallon paint bucket with fruit for dumping into the garbage can.

"It's been a nice symbiotic relationship for us," Zwern says. "There's no way we could eat that much that fast. It's good to know that the food is going feed other people."

Zwern, a nature lover and avid composter, also appreciates the organization for leaving literature on how to care for her trees after each visit.

Other Willow Glen residents, such as Genene Vaccaro on Laurie Avenue, are also fervent supporters of the organization. Vaccaro, who donates about 100 pounds of plums, lemons and oranges annually, thought that she was throwing away too much of her fruit before. "Now it goes to a good cause," she says.

Village People

Diserens says the organization has always gotten a good haul from Willow Glen backyards. Village Harvest keeps a list of trees that produce more than 500 pounds of fruit every year and majority of them are in backyards in Willow Glen, West San Jose and Campbell.

"I've spoken to a few arborists about this and our guess is that it's the soil's fertility," she says.

The donated fruits go primarily to seniors on fixed incomes and children from low-income families because these are the groups that need the most nutrition, Diserens says.

Village Harvest also tries to distribute the fruits back to the community they are harvested from.

"There's something elegant about neighbors helping neighbors," Diserens says. "It brings across the point that there's enough food in each city to take care of their own."

Every year, about half the fruit from Village Harvest goes to Willow Glen-based Second Harvest Food Bank. Lynn Crocker, the nonprofit's communications manager, says the fresh produce goes a long way for the 167,000 low-income families, adults and the seniors it serves monthly.

"With our food drive, we get a lot of food that's non-perishable," Crocker says. "The fruits are a great supplement and help us to provide balanced and healthy meals."

While Village Harvest welcomes all types of fruits, Diserens says it's harder to coordinate harvesting for fruits that ripen fast and spoil easily such as plums and apricots.

"These are time-sensitive fruits that have a small window within which they have to be harvested," she says. "We ask homeowners to pitch in and help when we can't make it."

She pointed out that the organization's website has a list of drop-off locations and even instructions on how homeowners can safely harvest fruits without using a ladder.

To date, Village Harvest has harvested about 250,000 pounds of fruit. Last year alone, it had a 81,000-pound haul throughout the Santa Clara Valley. But Diserens says the group is tapping only a fraction of fruit that is dropping in people's backyards every year. She estimates that there are at least 4 million pounds of fruit in backyards all across the valley.

"There's always room for more," she says. "Four million pounds is what's needed to make a dent in local hunger. People need to understand that even one tree can make a huge difference."

Those who are interested in becoming a volunteer harvester or donating fruit can contact Village Harvest at 888.FRUIT.411 or email info@villageharvest.org. For more information on Village Harvest, visit www.villageharvest.org.

Salvaging the Fruit

By Alicia Upano

Help feed the hungry:

Village Harvest is a nonprofit agency that harvests and accepts fruit throughout Santa Clara County. The organization distributes the food to the needy through its partner agencies. It relies entirely on the efforts of volunteers and donations.

The organization estimates more than 4 million pounds of fruit go to waste after dropping from backyard trees in Santa Clara County.

How residents can contribute:

Many fruit trees in the West San Jose and Campbell areas produce more than 500 pounds of fruit annually. Homeowners who have surplus fruit can contact Village Harvest to pick their fruit at 888.FRUIT.411. Donated fruit is considered a tax-deductible contribution.

What residents need to know:

Homeowners must be home when the volunteers are harvesting.

Fruit trees can not be picked if they were sprayed with pesticides, herbicides or fungicides two weeks prior to the gleaning date.

How to become a volunteer:

Those interested in volunteering
can contact Village Harvest by phone
at 888.FRUIT.411 or via email at
info@villageharvest.org.

After signing up, volunteers will learn about "Harvesting for the Hungry" dates through a monthly newsletter via email or by visiting the Village Harvest's website, www.villageharvest.org.

Village Harvest sends out volunteer teams to locations throughout the county to pick fruit.

Volunteer time ranges from four to seven hours and pickers can choose to work on weekdays and/or weekends.

Donation Drop offs:

Homeowners with a moderate amount of fruit can harvest their own fruit and donate to the following places:

Second Harvest Food Bank, 750 Curtner Ave., Mondays through Fridays between 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.