Healdsburg couple donates eggs, produce from farm to Sonoma County nonprofits

Farming is an encore career for Bruce Mentzer and Anthony Solar. Taking it up at an unlikely time of life - both are in their 50s - they find the sweaty work of growing food pure pleasure, particularly when done without profit.

They planted their Farm to Fight Hunger, 5 acres tucked off an unmarked driveway just south of Healdsburg, solely to pump out produce and fresh eggs for people in need.

Last year, their first full year of production, they donated two tons of eggplants, peppers, tomatoes and other just-picked edibles to local food banks, senior housing residents, the Boys & Girls Clubs and other nonprofits that feed people.

In a county full of bounty, an estimated 22% of the population struggles to get enough to eat. That includes 18,500 children. Mentzer and Solar are trying to make at least a small dent in that deficit.

Mentzer is almost apologetic when he admits their nonprofit farm is so enjoyable it feels more like fun than personal sacrifice. For him, working the land is the realization of a long-held dream after decades in the high-stress, high-stakes world of political marketing and advertising.

“We really just wanted to do something and do something to be helpful. This fit the bill on a number of levels,” Mentzer said.

For their efforts to bring farm-fresh food to the hungry, Mentzer and Solar have been selected for the April North Bay Spirit Award.

A joint project of The Press Democrat (Sonoma Media Investments) and Comcast, the award honors everyday heroes, people whose good deeds or community service go above and beyond standard volunteering. Recipients demonstrate initiative and leadership, often ferreting out an unmet need and filling it and going all-in for their cause.

Fresh and local

For Mentzer and Solar the mission is not just to provide food for the hungry but to make sure it is fresh from the ground, grown in Sonoma County for people who live in Sonoma County.

“It's really high quality. It's the flavors you would get at the farmers market, and it all gets used,” said Steve Pogue, a volunteer with the Farm to Pantry gleaning group in Healdsburg that helps harvest and distribute the food.

One recipient of the Farm to Fight Hunger harvest is Corazon Healdsburg, a nonprofit that offers assistance and support programs for Latinos. Mentzer and Solar provide a critical service, especially at a time when demand for food assistance has more than quadrupled because of the coronavirus pandemic, CEO Ariel Kelly said.

The fresh-laid eggs are an especially nice contribution to Corazon. Usually, they are grateful just to receive liquid eggs that have been frozen in pint-sized cartons from the Redwood Empire Food Bank, Kelly said.

“When people can get farm fresh eggs, the comparison is dramatic,” she said.

“And we know the locally-sourced goods are nutritious. It's organic. It's ethically and sustainably farmed. So we're really lucky.”

A lot of the food they receive, she added, is processed and not particularly fresh.

Under normal circumstances, Corazon distributes food to about 300 people a month. Now, with so many people furloughed or unemployed, they are seeing more than 300 a week, Kelly said.

Mentzer and Solar saw the crisis coming back in February. Anticipating a need for more food, they mowed some of their cover crops and planted lettuce and kale, which will be ready for gleaning this week. They also planted broccoli and potatoes, which will be ready for harvest in a few weeks.

“Our mission is more important than ever,” Mentzer said.

“It's critical. People are in food lines, and there are people who never imagined they would be in those lines.”

Hard work pays off

When Mentzer and Solar bought the property in 2018, it needed a lot of work to turn it into a productive truck farm. In addition to working on two homes that needed renovation, they had to tear out two acres of ailing wine grapes with a backhoe to make room for food crops.

They bought a tractor, mower and rotary tiller; planted a cover crop of fava beans, peas, vetch and rye grass and, as Mentzer said, “let it percolate” with compost and waited for nature to work its magic.

Exactly one year ago, they mowed it and planted 19 85-foot-long rows of vegetables.

“It was sad to look out over the land and know it was so degraded,” Mentzer said.

“We put time into bringing it back. We planted a lot of flowers because flowers draw beneficial bees and butterflies. That helps us in farming because we don't use pesticides.”

The colorful zinnias, cosmos and marigolds feed nature and make the farm photo-worthy, particularly in the fall when sunflowers shoot up to 12 feet tall.

At the time they bought the farm, Mentzer had just finished a two-year degree in sustainable agriculture at Santa Rosa Junior College and was itching to get his hands dirty.

Solar, aka “The Chicken Whisperer,” is in charge of the egg operation, fussing over 75 hens who have their own movable trailer coop and are free to scratch about in their own pasture.

“I'm very anal about my chicks,” he said.

“I get organic kibble from the feed store.” The chickens benefit from his culinary training. He mixes up his feed with granulated garlic, oyster shells and other supplements.

Solar, who grew up in Kenwood and spent his career in food, first in the grocery business and later as a chef, carries on the tradition of food ingrained in him as a child watching his Italian grandparents tend their gardens.

“I want to offer people the best they can possibly get fed when I do cook, and I want to feed my chickens the same way,” he said.

“Being Italian, that's how you show your love.”

Introduced to farming early

Mentzer also developed a feel for farming early in life. Although he grew up outside Boston, both of his parents came from rural Pennsylvania, and he would frequently visit.

“One grandfather crew field crops. I remember being mesmerized by that,” he said.

“I could appreciate the wide open spaces and blue skies. It just felt better to me.”

After studying communications at Indiana University in Pennsylvania, he embarked on a career in advertising services, something he did for close to 30 years.

He worked for a well-known political consultant and in 1991 founded his own agency, Mentzer Media, specializing in media placement for political campaigns.

Affiliated primarily with Republican politics, he placed more than $600 million in TV, cable and radio time for hundreds of campaigns for U.S. Senate and House of Representatives candidates, gubernatorial races and ballot initiatives all over the country.

After working for a super PAC on behalf of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012, he decided he was ready for a change.

“I enjoyed it but it never felt like it was my calling,” he said. “I was ready for a second act. I wanted to do something where I wasn't confined in an office, and I was ready to be outside.

“I just felt like I was caught up in the rat race more than anything else. I'm much happier now that I'm in touch with the ground,” he said.

Of this new chapter in his life Mentzer said, “I'm trying to correct my karma.”

Met 11 years ago

He and Solar poured their own funds into the farm. The pair met 11 years ago in Palm Springs. After a one-year long-distance relationship, Mentzer persuaded Solar to move in with him in suburban Maryland, where he had a backyard garden.

The couple had a mutual appreciation for fresh food. Solar as a young man worked for the old Petrini's market in Santa Rosa, moving up from bagger to management by the time he was 20.

When the company was sold, he started working for Bryan's, a gourmet market in San Francisco, preparing their takeout, a job he had for more than 15 years.

After he moved east, Solar decided to formalize his education by going to culinary school.

The couple made regular trips to Northern California and the wine country and fell in love with Healdsburg.

In the fall of 2014 they decided to call it home, buying three acres with a log cabin off Westside Road, where they have a greenhouse for starting their farm crops. They also have several goats, cows and more chickens.

“We came here and we were both enjoying being here. Then I decided to take a class at Santa Rosa Junior College's Shone farm in sustainable agriculture,” Mentzer said.

“I loved it so much, I signed up for the rest of the program.”

As part of the studies, he was challenged with writing up a business plan. Knowing he had no intention of selling to farmer's markets, he came up with an alternative idea: a plan for a nonprofit farm that would enable him to work outside while also serving others.

He and Solar fund the farm themselves, with some donations. Prickett's Nursery donated most of the seed for their starts last year.

They also received a grant from the California Department of Food and Agriculture to plant hedgerows of native plants to attract pollinators.

Partner with gleaners

They keep costs down by partnering with Healdsburg Farm to Pantry, a gleaning group with which Mentzer volunteers.

The gleaners help harvest the crops and deliver produce to groups such as The Healdsburg Food Pantry, Corazon's Groceries to Go program and the Alliance Medical Center's “farmacy cart” of fresh produce.

“They take great joy in what for some is a profession, and they do it out of the kindness of their hearts,” said Carol Beattie, a fellow volunteer with Farm to Pantry.

“They have this strong work ethic and desire to contribute, and there is this celebratory enthusiasm behind all of that work.”

Rachel Manning, a food resources manager with The Redwood Empire Food Bank, said the quality of the produce from the Farm to Fight Hunger is a cut above so much of their donations, which have been passed down through the food market several times before they reach the food bank.

“Mentzer and Solar are delivering it fresh from the ground to the community, with no middle person and no number of days passed before it gets from the farm to the plate,” she said.

Now that the spring is in full swing, Solar and Mentzer are preparing for a second season.

They are determined to grow even more food, adding a half acre to the one acre under cultivation last year.

That and their improved soil should double their yield to four tons this year, Mentzer said.

Solar said he takes great pleasure caring for his little ladies. Right now he has 50 chicks in waiting that will soon be ready to go from his home henhouse to the Farm to Feed the Hungry. He washes and packs all the eggs himself.

“It's so rewarding when we do bring food to the smaller pantries and we can see the people's faces and how excited they are,” Solar said.

“That is payment enough.”

Staff writer Meg McConahey can be reached at meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com.