ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, September 12, 1996 TAG: 9609130192
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: THAXTON
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
It only takes a couple of hours of gleaning to determine that "this is work," Howard Swank Jr. discovered in Danny Johnson's orchards Saturday morning.
Swank was one of about 20 members of Roanoke's Greene Memorial United Methodist Church who got up early to put in a half-day of picking apples off the ground to be donated to Roanoke-area homeless shelters and food pantries.
The work consisted of continual bending at the waist, searching under the trees for good apples - those without any serious blemishes - filling a five-gallon bucket, and carrying it to dump into a big sack.
The church members were gleaning the surplus harvest that Johnson's employees can't get - and they were following a biblical example, a law, actually - in which God ordered the ancient Hebrew farmers to leave a bit of the harvest at the edge of their fields to be gathered by the poor.
While this modern-day gleaning wasn't so much a matter of deliberately leaving a portion of the orchard for the poor, it was a matter of making sure excess produce - left either as a result of natural processes or modern harvesting techniques - gets to those who need it.
This project was one of dozens coordinated each year by the Society of St. Andrew, a 17-year-old Big Island-based organization that promotes educational and hands-on programs to combat hunger.
For Swank's part, even though the effort was genuinely work, "you forget that" in the fellowship and fun with fellow church members, he said.
"I get to know people, particularly younger people, that I would not normally get to meet," Swank said. "People whose paths I normally wouldn't cross."
Truth be told, Swank said, while he's doing the work, "I don't think about the folks who ultimately will eat this food so much as I think about the fellowship with my fellow church members."
Kay Smith agreed that the fellowship was important, but, "since our church is downtown, we're very aware of the need. Every time we go to church we're likely to pass some of the people who will benefit" from the gleaning effort.
"As I go to work every day, I pass RAM House," a day shelter for the homeless that serves lunch and often provides apples like the ones Smith was harvesting as a snack the poor and homeless may take with them when they leave.
"There are always people waiting for the doors to open. Seven days a week. We can see the need."
Working to fulfill that, she's also learned the etymology of the word "windfall," since apples prematurely blown from the trees provide a boon to the poor, even if they are of little use to orchardist Danny Johnson.
"We're glad to get them up," Johnson said, and glad to apply the old adage that "charity begins at home."
"People really want to help other people," Johnson said. The gleaning projects are a way for him and the volunteer gleaners to do that.
Johnson is an outgoing sort whose pick-your-own orchards are only part of his business ventures. He owns Thaxton Market - home of the big "Little Apple" - and some rental property.
His 50 acres of orchards "provide a way of life, not a living," he says, though he's trying every way he can think of to make use of the apples and other crops he grows - from apple cider and apple butter to a new venture with wine.
He is best known to thousands of school children who visit the orchard each year. Johnson dresses up as Johnny Appleseed and puts on a 90-minute program about apples and orchards and the farming life.
It's a life he convincingly claims to love - and the fruits of which he's willing to share.
"If an apple lays out there and rots, what good has it done anybody? The volunteers that do this" - glean the fallen apples - "they're the ones that ought to be commended."
Johnson says he's especially thankful to have gleaning supervisors like Roger and Susan Layne, who "know what to do" and make sure the gleaners get all the apples they can without causing any damage to the fragile orchards.
It was the Laynes who, a decade ago, first asked Johnson if they could bring a group of gleaners.
They had just returned from a Harvest of Hope program sponsored by the Society of St. Andrew.
The ecumenical Harvest of Hope projects last a week or a weekend, in which participants engage in a series of educational programs as well as a gleaning project, all in a spiritual atmosphere.
The society was founded by United Methodist ministers Ray Buchanan and Ken Horne of Big Island, and its Christian roots continue to provide the motivation for its activities and its volunteers.
As Harvest of Hope participants are preparing to return to their homes, Susan Layne explained, they are asked to covenant - or make a commitment - for future action on behalf of the hungry.
"This is it."
Roger Layne approached Johnson that fall of 1986 and every season since - at least when there was enough of a crop to provide any gleaning - volunteers have come back.
The apple project was part of a diversification of the Society's original program, which involved gleaning potatoes from the huge fields of eastern Virginia.
Mechanical harvesting of that crop leaves usable potatoes in the fields, needing only volunteer labor to pick them up, pack them, and ship them to areas where there is a need.
The harvests now include all kinds of produce, though potatoes remain a staple. The society even has a Hunters for the Hungry program that processes venison for use in soup kitchens.
The Laynes, members of Main Street United Methodist Church in Bedford, are now the volunteer coordinators for the Bedford area and have become leaders for Harvest of Hope projects.
They've also led gleaning projects as far away as North Carolina, where they once helped gather 20 tons of cabbage that was muddied in a flood.
Because of that kind of circumstance, "We're always looking for people who can glean on short notice," Roger Layne said.
Many projects can be scheduled well ahead of time, however, such as most apple gleanings.
Last Saturday's project has been in the works since last fall, said Richard Rakes, who was its coordinator at Greene Memorial.
When the project was completed just after noon, Roger Layne figured the gleaners had picked up about 4,500 pounds of apples.
The Rescue Mission of Roanoke received 2,000 pounds, the Salvation Army Abused Women's Shelter in Roanoke got 1,300 pounds, RAM House in Roanoke was sent 700 pounds, and Bedford Christian Ministries received 500 pounds.
The ton of apples arrived at the Rescue Mission in good shape, said director Joy Sylvester-Johnson, and were already being used this week for both lunch and supper.
"It's donations like this that enable us to feed 150,000 meals a year at 9 cents a plate," Sylvester-Johnson said.
LENGTH: Long : 132 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Roger Hart. 1. Gleaner Kay Smith, a member of Greeneby CNBMemroial United Methodist Church in downtown Roanoke, combs the
dropped apples in an orchard in Thaxton. 2. Larry Lance carries a
full bag of apples to a waiting truck for shipment to a food pantry.
3. "If an apple lays out there and rots, what good has it done
anybody?" orchardist Danny Johnson asks. 4. Mark Reynolds, 17, rides
on the tailgate of a pickup truck as it hauls off the day's load of
gleaned apples from Danny Johnson's orchard. color.