Feeding the Community

Unsung Heroes on the Front Line of Food Rescue

Between hunger and the one-sixth of Ventura County residents who regularly face food insecurity stands a battle line of volunteers.

“Volunteers make Food Forward happen,” says Ally Gialketsis, Ventura County branch manager of the gleaning nonprofit, which rescues and distributes surplus fresh produce to the hungry. “From those who are coming out to connect abundant produce to all of the many partners we work with, including produce donors and receiving agencies, we couldn’t harvest food, fight hunger and build community without these folks.”

These are the stories of four of those volunteers who are helping to make sure their neighbors and their children are going to bed full of healthy, nutritious food.

Frank Ungemach, 66, of Moorpark says his faith keeps him helping others at the Moorpark Pantry Plus.

“I’m a Christian. Jesus said, ‘When you saw me hungry, you fed me.’ It’s part of following Jesus. It’s the whole concept of helping your neighbor. It’s a good thing to do,” Ungemach says. “I like to think of it as putting a smile on God’s face.”

Ungemach says he volunteers at the Moorpark Pantry Plus, which is associated with Catholic Charities and other local nonprofits, gathering food for distribution five days a week.

“They don’t cook food. But they provide canned food, fresh food and clothing and serve between 350 and 400 working poor and about 200 elderly people each week,” Ungemach says. “I also work with Ally and Food Forward to pick up fresh food to bring to Simi Valley twice a month. They have a free farmers’ market day open to the poor.”

He says he mostly goes to local farmers, who have impressed him with their ongoing generosity.

“The farmers are extremely generous. The Food Forward volunteers come out to farms and they pick a few hours. Then I come out and bring it to Moorpark,” says Ungemach, who makes the rounds from Calabasas to Ventura in his F150 pickup, which carries 1,600– 1,800 pounds. “Typically it’s more 600 to 700 pounds.”

Most of the food he gathers is citrus when it’s in season. “There’s a packinghouse in Santa Paula. In the spring we go out there. They sort through the tangerines and give us seconds. I pick up thousands of pounds of tangerines, although they’re out of season now. Grapefruits are in season, but they’re a little harder to give away,” he says.

Ungemach is a retired organic chemist and patent attorney who worked for Amgen for years. He said his wife, Kathleen Gilliland, also volunteers at the food pantry working in the kitchen.

“She does her own thing. But she supports me,” he says, adding that he will continue to volunteer. “This is a worthwhile exercise. This is fresh food picked within 24–48 hours. You can’t get it that fresh anywhere else. It’s healthy stuff. I love that.”

Jodie Francoeur, 49, of Simi Valley says the once-a-month free farmers’ market she heads up started off as an experiment. In the past almost two years, the effort has taken off in Simi Valley, offering free food to anyone who needs it.

“Food Forward has a relationship with distributors. They provide six pallets of food, and once a month we split the food with Food Forward. They distribute it to local agencies. And we hold the free farmers’ market, which is open to the community. People can come down if they need to supplement their groceries with no requirements, qualifications or cash register,” says Francoeur, who works full time at Amgen with the clinical supply team.

In addition to running the farmers’ market, which is held on the fourth Tuesday of the month, Francoeur is also president of Simi at the Garden, a 2.9-acre community garden that sets aside a portion of its space for a “sharity garden.”

Francoeur says she stumbled into her volunteer effort. “It selected me. I was a gardener. I was on board as secretary at the garden and over time I became president,” Francoeur says.

The plot for the charity garden, which donates most of its produce to the Samaritan Center in Simi Valley, offers care for those enrolled in the center’s programs.

Francoeur explained that the free farmers’ market is for those who might not qualify for low-income programs, but still might be having a hard time making ends meet.

“In California, it’s very challenging to make ends meet. Once you pay mortgage, rent or other basics there’s sometimes not a lot left over for the food bill. Some people come by month to month. Sometimes a person will come once and never again need help. We have stay-at-home moms going though divorce. We were there for a lady whose husband was dying of cancer. We support the elderly. There’s a need in the community for it,” Francoeur says. “There is no criteria for coming to the market. There is a stigma for people applying for welfare assistance. But not here.”

Francoeur says her family, which includes husband, Chris, three adult children and nine grandchildren, is very supportive of her volunteer efforts.

“My family is amazing. They help with the free farmers’ market and community garden if I need anything or I am short volunteers. There are times we need a forklift and my husband, Chris, who works in construction, will bring one down. I’m so fortunate,” Francoeur says.

George Curtis, 74, of Thousand Oaks, has been collecting food for the past six years so he can distribute it to residents of Sycamore Senior Village in Oxnard, an affordable residence for seniors.

“I feed about 100 people a week who otherwise wouldn’t have anything fresh,” he says. “They live in an assisted-living building, but many of them are in wheelchairs. They can’t go to the store even though it’s only a few blocks away.”

Curtis got involved with gathering food and distributing it to the hungry when he volunteered to work a couple of times a week at Jubilee Church in Camarillo, where he worships.

“They have a small pantry on Wednesdays and Sundays and I had a little bit of time so I volunteered. Then I got more involved,” he says.

In fact, in 2016 the church gave him a 1991 Toyota pickup to drive around to local stores and farms to pick up extra food being donated to the local food banks, which include Food Forward and FOOD Share.

“I pick up food everywhere—all over Ventura County. At Food Forward, they get food at ranches and they call me to pick it up. I also glean food at farmers’ markets. FOOD Share gets stores to donate food, so I go to the back and meet them at the receiving dock, where they load my truck with food,” he says.

Curtis takes the food and other items, such as clothing, to Sycamore Senior Village, where they allow him to store it and distribute it to the seniors who live at the residence. One year there was a heat wave, and he went around gathering donated electric fans for the residents because there is no air conditioning in the building.

Over the past several months, Curtis had to take some time off to treat his recently diagnosed lung cancer. (As of November 2019, we are pleased to report that George Curtis is undergoing immunotherapy and is currently tumor free.)

“I’ve got 25 volunteers lined up to go to Sycamore every Saturday to help out. I’m handling that mostly by telephone since January, when I was diagnosed,” he says of his stage 3 cancer. “I had half a lung taken out. My wife, Joanna [Curtis], is my backup with the cancer. I was in a wheelchair for about a month after my surgery and my wife took me everywhere I went. I couldn’t even stand up to get a chest x-ray. What a trooper. She’s handling it so well. She’s my enthusiasm.”

John Parmenter of Oxnard helps those who worry about where their next meal will come from by growing food in one of five community garden plots he tends in Ventura.

“I have five community garden plots at Ventura’s Cornucopia Community Garden plots. I harvest on average about once a week and I take [the food] to Project Understanding. They distribute through some of their pantries,” Parmenter says. Among his harvest are squash, spinach, lettuce, beans, bok choi, kale, cabbage and several herbs.

“I’ve been gardening at Cornucopia for about six years. I started with one plot and the City of Ventura had contributed three plots to Food Forward. I was asked by Ally if I would be interested in maintaining those and I said sure. I’ve been gardening my whole life. When I was a boy, my dad had a garden and I followed him around. I’ve always been interested in growing vegetables organically,” he says.

Parmenter is a retired middle school teacher at Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood. He said gardening for others gives him a sense of accomplishment and purpose.

“I was looking for a place to volunteer my time. I went online and found Food Forward. I love gardening and I love to give away food so it evolved into working with them because it’s a great organization,” says Parmenter, adding that his wife, Wendy Parmenter, is very supportive of his work.

He said he’s seen individuals and families at Turning Point and Project Understanding getting food when he makes his drop-off s. “I always think, ‘My veggies are finding a home.’ It’s great to see Project Understanding give to community. It makes me feel good and I’ll continue as long as I can,” says Parmenter, who says he’s “nearing 70.”

“I’m just thankful for Food Forward. The whole idea behind it is pretty simple. We have an abundance of food around us. Let’s share it.”