A Chicken and a Picnic Table
A chicken changed Lorne Underwood’s life. Five years after he held that chicken, it still brings tears to his eyes.
“We’d travelled to Malawi and Mozambique on a Food Study Tour visiting some of the projects supported by the Foodgrains Bank,” he told me recently. “One of the villages we visited had received food aid and when they greeted us they thanked us profusely. We were given gifts such as hats and mats. On our way to the place where they had prepared lunch for us, a Grandmother - who was the caregiver to her grandchildren because their parents had died of AIDS - stepped onto the path in front of us. She reached out and pressed a live chicken into my hands. She wanted me to have it.”
Lorne paused to clear his throat as the tears began to flow. “I said thank you. And she said, in her limited English, ‘no, thank YOU!’ She was so grateful for the help she’d received that she gave the only thing she had to give – the chicken that was probably meant to feed her grandchildren that night. That was the moment I knew just how important the work we are doing is.”
Lorne told me this story while sitting on the end of a long picnic table that stretched so far I could barely see the end. The picnic table is Lorne’s most recent effort to make a difference for people like the grandmother he met in Africa.
Lorne hails from Clifford, Ontario and has been part of the local growing project for more years than he can remember. He laughed when I asked how long he’s been involved. “Somewhere between 15 and 18 years ago I first heard about the Foodgrains Bank,” he said. “I read about it in the paper, and then someone came to make a presentation at our church. When I heard the presentation, I was fairly convinced this was a good organization, so I offered 6 acres of land for a project.” Lorne’s church, Clifford United (together with other churches in the area who joined later) has been running the Clifford Hanover Oakville Growing Project since 1995. In addition to the growing project, they have also held fundraising auction sales. In total, their donations amount to $119,752.25 since they began.
This year, Lorne was looking for another way to contribute. That’s when he came up with the idea of a picnic table. “I’d heard about a group in Markdale who built the world’s longest picnic table as a fundraiser and I thought ‘we could do that’.”
Together with a group of volunteers, Lorne set out to top the previous record and build the world’s longest white cedar picnic table. Some people told him it was a crazy idea, but he responded by becoming more determined than ever. “I’m the kind of guy who flies by the seat of his pants, and if someone tells me it can’t be done, I look for a way to do it. If you’re not willing to fail, then you’ll never try anything.” Gradually, Lorne managed to convince people to join him, including the Hanover Home Hardware who donated screws, bolts, and stain to the cause. The lumber was purchased from Moses Weaver at Scone at a discount.
Although it will take some time to make the record official with the team at Guinness Book of World Records, Lorne is confident that they topped the record. At 126 feet 2 inches, it’s almost 26 feet longer than the original. To ensure accuracy, Lorne invited the local politicians out to the International Plowing Match, where the table was on display, to do the actual measuring.
The table will be cut into 6, 7, and 8 foot lengths and auctioned off to the highest bidder. Before being sold, each section will be branded by a local wood-branding expert with the logos of Canadian Foodgrains Bank and the International Plowing Match.
The picnic table won’t be the last of Lorne’s dedication to the Foodgrains Bank. The memory of that chicken continues to motivate him. When I asked him what he’s planning next, he chuckled. “I’ve got a few ideas, but I don’t think I’ll talk about them yet.” It’s clear that Lorne is committed to the work of ending hunger. “When you’re passionate about something,” he says, “you just can’t get around it. It drives you.”