Volunteer gardeners offer skills, labor to build and maintain vegetable plots By Sharon Abercrombie Staff writer The volunteer gardeners at St. Anne Parish in Byron are an enthusiastic group that includes master gardeners and other skilled parishioners. Kenny Lee, a master gardener, stepped forward to help with the design, digging and planting. “The garden’s organic,” he explained proudly. Anna Piazza, 80, famous in Byron for her spectacular backyard garden across the street from St. Anne’s, said the area’s soil is “number one here, which means very good.” She gave advice on timelines for planting and harvesting as well as what high yield crops to plant. She reminded the gardeners to include flowers among the veggies to attract bees. John Jolly, a retired engineer at Livermore National Labs, dug ditches and installed the underground piping for the garden’s automatic sprinkling system. Jolly recently completed construction on a large wooden gazebo so the gardeners can have a cool resting place. The gazebo drew a crowd last month at the garden’s dedication ceremony. Over 300 parishioners showed up to feast on the bounty. “We grilled veggies with olive oil, garlic and spices and served them along with the hot dogs,” said Karen Randle, a member of the garden team and a volunteer with St. Vincent de Paul Society, the garden’s beneficiary. St. Anne Gardening Ministry is now looking towards planting winter crops as well as completing construction of two wooden compost bins. They will be rounding up pumpkins to sell at next month’s parish festival. Some special scarecrows will also be on sale. They are going to resemble members of St. Anne’s “including our pastor and parish nun,” Randle said impishly. But just as quickly, she turned serious. Hunger in Byron and Brentwood is not going to go away any time soon, given the state of the economy and continuing job losses. “When I go out to glean at the edge of farming fields, I always see at least seven of our St. Vincent de Paul clients out there doing the same thing.”

By Sharon Abercrombie
Staff writer

Before the month of September is over, St. Anne Parish in Byron will have donated over 1,000 pounds of fresh fruit and vegetables to its local St. Vincent de Paul Society to feed hungry families in East Contra Costa County. The prolific bounty — which includes cantaloupes, squash, egg plants, watermelons, corn, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, — is the result of a new gardening ministry spearheaded last January by parishioner Bob Sanocki, a self-described “casual gardener.”

Father Ron Schmit, pastor of St. Anne Parish in Byron, blesses produce from the parish garden. Greg Tarczynski photo

The seeds for this first parish garden in the Oakland Diocese sprouted last winter after St. Vincent de Paul volunteers Karen Randle and Bob Van Slambrook reported a large upsurge in requests for food at the church and the Brentwood Community Center, the local food distribution headquarters for St. Vincent de Paul.

The food needs of so many hard-pressed people — now up to 350 per month — prompted Sanocki to ask his pastor, Father Ron Schmit, if the parish could start a garden on some of the church’s vacant land around its community life center. Father Schmit gave his blessing and put Sanocki in charge.

Sanocki immediately called together a gardening committee. “We started with absolutely no money,” recalls Randle. The situation changed as members came up with fund-raising efforts and public pleas for help. A Sees candy sale brought in $1500 towards an irrigation drip system, tools and wood for the garden plots. The St. Vincent de Paul Society contributed $300 and the Knights of Columbus supplied another $500.

When Sanocki and his team called for gardening volunteers, enough individuals came forward to tend 32 raised bed plots. The group also put in 30 15-gallon fruit trees. Parishioners were invited to purchase the lemon, lime, apple, cherry, apricot, orange and peach trees as memorials to family members. The effort raised $4,000, said Randle, the daughter of a North Dakota farming family who served as the tree project supervisor. First fruits of the trees will be ready next spring.

St. Anne’s gardening ministry has two goals — to share food with the needy and to educate children and adults in the science of gardening, explained Van Slambrook, a St. Vincent de Paul volunteer.

Randle said volunteers are donating between 50-75 percent of their weekly yield to feed the hungry. They take the remaining produce to feed their own families. To make sure there is enough food for the 350 Vincentian clients, the gardening team fills in with corn and tomatoes they personally purchase from local farmers each week.

Randle has two more methods for collecting food. She cruises the area for fruit trees and gardens, stops her car, and then boldly asks the owners for donations. She also gleans farm produce that has fallen to the ground and will not be harvested — just as people in Biblical times did. “We’re not shy,” she said.

The team has invited the gardeners to bring their children to help dig, plant, water and harvest. So far, about 10 youngsters ranging from two to 17 are showing up with their parents. “They’re getting such a kick out of picking and tasting,” Randle said.

Father Ron Schmit, pastor, considers the parish garden “a wonderful way to feed the poor by bringing them fresh fruits and vegetables” — items which they’d never be able to afford at the supermarket. At another level, he said, “the garden is bringing generations and communities together to reconnect people to the earth in this age of global warming.”

Asked if he is among the 32 garden plot tenders, Father Schmit replied “no,” but that’s only because the busy pastor already has his own rectory garden to take care of.

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