(December 19, 2001) — Crouched over a clump of leaves, senior Natalie Chiriboga picks a handful of string beans and tosses them into a bucket. Surrounded by bean plants, she sighs as her back starts to ache. Chiriboga was among the 75 students in Ira West’s Current Issues classes who experienced farm work and took part in gleaning (harvesting leftover crops) for the Orange County Second Harvest Food Bank Dec. 11. “It was more work than I expected, but it felt good that I helped the community in some way,” she said. In a small Irvine bean field, students labored and kneeled to the ground to fill individual buckets. They worked under the sun for about two hours and tried to avoid prickly weeds entangled among the plants. Even bus drivers Carlos De La Cruz and Lorita DeVine pitched in, filling their own buckets with beans. “It was a nice experience to help for a good cause,” said De La Cruz. The field trip wrapped up the classes’ study of the poor and migrant workers. West said that he wished to give students “a taste of backbreaking toil” that brings food to “our tables.” Senior Chester Ramos agreed that the day’s work gave him “perspective on the working conditions of farm workers today.” At the end of the day, the volunteers were able to fill two 500 lbs crates with beans. The crates were then delivered to the nonprofit organizations for distribution among the needy. According to gleaning coordinator Sam Carruthers, Clark students’ efforts will help feed about 4,000 people. About 400,000 people in Orange County will be in need of meals every month, according to Orange County Harvest. Every year an enormous amount of produce is left to spoil after initial harvests. Farmers sometimes neglect generally good crops due to low prices of their produce. “It’s amazing how much this country wastes. We could feed countries with the food that you harvest from gleanings,” commented West. According to Orange County Harvest, with the help of gleaning programs, the produce are put to use, providing nearly 4 million meals to the hungry and pulling about 300 volunteers each year.