Feeding a Need on the Fairways

The event: Take a Swing at Hunger, a golf tournament to benefit the Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County. Charmac, the title sponsor, staged the fairway fund-raiser at the Western Hills Golf & Country Club in Chino Hills.

Teeing off: About 170 amateur golfers hit the links on picturesque greens nestled in a canyon. “Nobody here has ever been on tour. They’re just people who love to play golf,” said Dan Rogers, event chairman. The tournament landed on a sunny weekday, making for an ideal round of golf. “As one guy told me, ‘This beats working.’ ”

Waste not: Founded by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in 1983, Second Harvest Food Bank in Orange supplies about 300 local nonprofit agencies with food at a low cost (about 1 to 14 cents per pound).

“In 15 years, we’ve distributed 115 million pounds of food,” said Dan Harney, president of the society’s Council of Orange County. Second Harvest receives surplus food from industry suppliers, retail markets, hotels and restaurants; it helps feed 180,000 people each month.

Food for thought: “We’re getting the message out that there’s a lot of hungry people here,” Rogers said.

An estimated 400,000 Orange County residents--16% of the population--are at risk of going to bed hungry, he said.

Faces: Kim Gostowski, who won the tournament; A.G. Kawamura; Tom Seeberg; Bruce Brandenburg; Jim Duran; Paul O’Connell; David Parker; Paul Schloemer; Gene Sullivan; and Bill Thomas.

Bottom line: The $150-per-person tournament was expected to net $40,000 for the food bank. Proceeds will be used to supply 22 staple products to member charities, all nonprofit agencies that do not charge their clients for food.

What’s ahead: A Summer Food & Wine Festival to benefit Second Harvest and the Someone Cares Food Kitchen June 25 at South Coast Plaza’s Crystal Court in Costa Mesa. Call (714) 771-1343.