Local company, food banks harvest corn to feed the hungry

Jim Origer headed out to the Marengo cornfields before 5 a.m. Wednesday, braving heavy rains and sloshing through deep mud.

At 5:30 a.m., a team of volunteers, including Origer's wife and three daughters, joined him and began handpicking approximately 50,000 ears of sweet corn.

Origer is not a farmer; he is a property investor. And he will not make any money off the gathered corn; rather, he and his team of helpers will give it away for free. The beneficiaries? The hundreds of thousands of Illinois residents living below the poverty line.

Origer, of Shorewood Property Investments in Barrington, has been working in conjunction with the Northern Illinois Food Bank and the Greater Chicago Food Depository for the past year, devising a scheme to provide hungry locals with free, fresh produce.

"I really don't know what I'm doing with this stuff," Origer said, smiling. "But several local farmers gave advice on how to do it all. Farmers are some of the most wholesome, generous people."

Shorewood Investments set aside 16 acres of land to cultivate, with all of the yield going directly to the food banks. Local farmers donated time to planting and cultivating, according to Origer, and the food banks paid for all direct material costs, though they would love to eventually get other local companies to take on all financial costs, he said.

So far, the endeavor has harvested five truckloads in all, or up to 125,000 ears of corn. And organizers are looking forward, hoping to continue the effort and eventually branch out to other types of produce.

"My goal is to set up a sustainable program structure," Origer said. "... To find a land owner to donate land, a farmer to donate time, to find a way to quarterback it all and grow for different seasons around the state."

The Northern Illinois Food Bank, headquartered in St. Charles, feeds up to 300,000 hungry locals in 13 counties. The bulk of its 35 million pounds of food given away each year comes from donations. A small portion is purchased by the bank to supplement the donated goods. And the sweet corn harvest is helping the bank - which also includes soup kitchens, youth nutrition programs, mobile pantries and homeless shelters - reach its ultimate goal.

"It's not just about providing meals," said Sarah Slavenas, communications coordinator for NIFB. "It's about providing nutritious meals."

Wednesday's collection crew consisted of 35 to 40 volunteers. Some were recruited by Origer's family, including his nephew's hockey team and several workers from his office. Others were sent by local companies to spend their workdays harvesting. But all were clad in work clothes and eager to get into the fields and pick out the ripe ears of corn. Combines could not be used for this massive gathering; their speed can scar and damage collected ears, and these workers weren't taking chances on not delivering pristine corn.

"It's hard work and we're all taking Advil, but everyone's got a smile on their face," said Shorewood accountant Teresa Zehnder of Huntley. "It's well worth it. I know (the food banks) are very appreciative and that's the reason we're all out here. It's going to a great bunch of people."

After the picking is complete, the food banks are in a time crunch to get the corn out while it's still fresh. Ears can be kept for a little over a week, Origer said, before losing flavor. The groups will hold one more harvest Monday to gather the remaining crops.

The pickers concur, the manual harvest is tedious. But Origer said he saw the need for produce in the food banks, saw nobody was meeting the need and set out to do something about it.

"It's so easy for people during a recession to say, 'I've got to take care of myself. I've got to take care of my family,' " Slavenas said. "But then for somebody to look around and see, yes, unemployment is prolonged and high and cutting so deep, and say, 'I'm going to do something' ... We couldn't be happier."