Reporting by: Jaclyn Sersland, Lilli Trompke, and Avery Colborn
It’s a matter of trust.
That’s true each day for 14-year-old Lily Fields when she restocks the fruit stand she manages outside of her east Ojai home.
She first opened the stand when she and her mom moved to Ojai about a year and a half ago. Together, the two grow a variety of vegetables and citrus, and collect eggs from 14 chickens, all of which they sell at the stand.
When she goes out to check the cash box, an army green ammo cannister drilled down into the wooden stand, she is especially excited to count her earnings for the week, since 100% of the money will be sent to Uganda to help children in need.
“[Running the stand] makes me feel like I’m making a difference on this planet by helping people in need,” said Lily, an eighth-grader at Ojai Valley School. “Just doing random acts of kindness is just good to do in the long run for everyone.”
In a town famous for its citrus, many residents of Ojai have come up with a creative solution for their excess produce: honesty boxes.
Scattered throughout various neighborhoods, streets and orchards, these fruit stands function on the honor system, relying on the integrity of their customers to leave the right amount of money for whatever produce they take.
But they are more than just fruit stands. Honesty boxes almost serve as an ode to the way things used to be done, to times before agriculture was an industry, when people not only knew their neighbors, but trusted them too.
For about a dozen years, OVS lower campus science teacher Matthew Inman was the person people in his neighborhood would go to for fresh produce. He used to run his own stand of home grown fruits, flowers, plants, and even some of his son’s self-made pottery.
The idea of the stand first originated when the stone fruit trees that Mr. Inman and his family had planted for their own use started producing too much fruit all at once, and they had to come up with a solution of how to utilize it purposefully.
From that time on, the Inmans’ honesty box stand became a popular place for passers-by and even regular customers to buy fresh, organic fruit. Mostly, those people were honest about paying for what they would take. But on some occasions, unfortunately, they would abuse the self-serving concept that so nicely reflects Ojai’s trusting nature.
“Not all people were honest about it,” Mr. Inman explained. “Some folks just took the fruit, others took the money.”
In spite of some dishonest customers, there would be a profit of anywhere between ten and fifty dollars per week, depending on the time of the year.
Eventually, the stand itself became too difficult to maintain, and after 12 years, it had to be shut down.
“We spent about an hour a week tending the farm stand, like putting out new fruit and collecting the money, but zero time maintaining or improving the actual farm stand structure,” Mr. Inman said. “I promised my wife I would make her a really nice and new one.”
For the new fruit stand, that may be coming soon, Mr. Inman wants to up his game.
“I would like to sell surplus eggs from my own chickens,” he said. “This goal ups the game a bit though, because it is preferred to keep the eggs cool. Maybe the new and improved farmstand will have a built-in ice chest or something similar.”
Whether or not he will have one of his own again any time soon, Mr. Inman will always remain fond of the little honesty stands around the neighborhoods.
“Farm stands and honesty boxes are kind of like front porches and sidewalks,” he said. “They bring a community together.”
A number of students and teachers from OVS have fruit stands at their own homes, but one group of lower students started their very own on the Lower Campus.
In September, the eight students in Shandon Woll’s advisory set out to join the long-standing tradition of honesty boxes and start one of their own, and with the help of other OVS faculty members that vision came true in February.
“My advisory wanted to have a farm stand, but they were resistant to the idea that they would not be standing there and selling,” said Mrs. Woll, who is the athletics coordinator at Lower. “So it was my idea to have a lock box on it, and It was a hard sell for me to say but it would be more successful this way.”
Math teacher Doug Colborn and arts and woodshop teacher Ryan Lang both contributed to the cause by constructing the stand. Mr. Colborn built the fruit stand while Mr. Lang put a lock box there for buyers to leave their money.
Since the honesty box took off in February, it’s been a huge success. The whole school has gotten involved to keep the stand running by donating avocados, citrus, kale, and even flower seeds in packets the art students created.
“Our advisory gave it to the school and we take care of it,” Mrs. Woll said. “But the great thing is that the whole school has gotten involved.”
The success goes further than just the students and faculty who work hard to keep the stand running, but to the people who give money to the stand instead of simply taking the produce and leaving. Honesty boxes are built on a system of trust, and the people who buy from them know that. Since it’s in the middle of campus with parents and students buying from the farmstand every day, the system works really well.
“I think because parents know that it’s a fundraiser they might even put five dollars though they only take four dollars worth of produce,” Mrs. Woll explained. “It seems like it’s working.”
Already, the honesty box has brought in a good amount of money, but Mrs. Woll’s advisees decided unanimously to donate all the proceeds to Help of Ojai. Eventually, when they make enough money, they’ll alternate between donating their makings to Help of Ojai and Humane Society.
Ojai’s honesty boxes stand as perfect examples of how many would define the town: a community that trusts one another.
“Because we are gone a lot of the time…we expect people to do the right thing. We’ve had people…take the fruit and steal the boxes,” Lily said about why they chose to use the honor system for the stand. “But we think that we really encourage people to make the right decisions. We don’t want to have to be here 24/7.”
From the mix of oranges, Meyer lemons, avocados and more that are sold, in a typical week Lily’s stand usually earns about $50 to $60. The record, though, was a whole $118 dollars in one week.
Lily has been running the stand for nearly as long as she’s been living in Ojai. When she first moved in the stand was already at her house, but it was run-down and unappealing. So she decided to give it a makeover.
Now, the bight yellow-and-white stand welcomes any visitors that stop by, decorated with colorful tapestries and displaying photos of children in Uganda who are helped by Lily’s donations.
Maintaining the stand isn’t an easy job. But Lily feels it’s all worth it because she knows her work is going to a good cause. On top of what she earns from the fruit stand, on her birthday every year, Lily doesn’t ask for any gifts; she asks for donations, and raises money to send to more people in need.
“We keep running the fruit stand because we believe that there is still so much we can help with,” Lily said. “We can keep helping and there really are no limits to doing that.”