Pulling up lessons

Marisa O’Neil

Andersen Elementary School fourth-graders got down and dirty

Wednesday, marking Cesar Chavez Day by harvesting food for needy

families.

About 80 students visited a seven-acre farm in Irvine, where

volunteers pick fruits and vegetables to feed local families. The

food the fourth-graders collected Wednesday will go to feed about

4,000 people, said Sam Caruthers of Second Harvest Food Bank, which

runs the program.

“Everything you pick today will be on someone’s plate by Friday,”

Caruthers told the students before they got to work. “So we’re going

to pick with care, like we’re going to be eating it ourselves,

right?”

Working in a field, if only for a couple hours, helps the students

get a better understanding of the lives of the migrant farm workers

Chavez fight to protect, said teacher Jeff Qualey.

It also fits into their service learning programs and studies of

California history.

Before their trip, students studied the life and work of Chavez,

who died in 1993.

“He was trying to make fair wages for migrant farm workers,”

10-year-old Olivia Tharp said as she dug a pungent bunch of green

onions out of the ground.

“So he made a union called the United Farm Workers,” Pippa

Saunders, 10, added.

Sam Noe and Armon Alaghbandi, both 10, roamed the field, searching

for the biggest fists of broccoli they could find.

Both decided it was fun, but not something they’d want to do every

day.

“It’s so cheap, how people get only 30 cents a box,” Sam said,

quoting a statistic he had read of migrant farm workers. “It’s so

heavy.”

This is the third year Andersen students have taken part in the

program, which has remained a popular outing.

“This is their favorite field trip,” Qualey said. “The fifth

graders were saying: ‘You’re so lucky, it’s so fun.’ Of course,

they’re only here for a couple of hours. If they did it five days a

week, 12 hours a day, it would be drudgery.”

But, lucky for the students, they got the luxury of a water break

and a chance to sample some of the organically grown produce.

“Whoa, we can eat the broccoli?” 9-year-old Billy MacDonald

marveled as his classmates dug in.

“Duh,” 10-year-old Hayley Womack said, punctuating her comment

with a slight eye roll.

The final tally of their work: 1,000 pounds of broccoli and

onions, a smattering of strawberries and dozens of new chili pepper

seedlings planted.

And some dirty laundry.

“It’s all muddy,” Chelcie DeMarco, 9, said, examining her jeans.

“I got my butt all dirty.”