♪♪ You are looking at a field of dreams come true.

These 40 acres of farmland thrive in the heart of highly populated Orange County, California.

It's home base to Solutions for Urban Agriculture, a nonprofit in Irvine dedicated to fighting hunger.

And on a Saturday morning, just after sunrise, this group of volunteers work side-by-side harvesting fresh vegetables.

This fertile soil is sacred to the nonprofit's founder, A.G. Kawamura.

He's a third generation farmer and former secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

Now, he's working with an impressive partnership of hunger fighters to grow more than 3 million pounds of produce every year and give it all away.

[A.G.] Our group, Solutions for Urban Agriculture, we have a wonderful saying, "It'd be nice to have edible... edible landscapes everywhere, so there's hunger nowhere," and that elevator pitch, if you will, continues to be our rallying cry.

We've been able to transform all kinds of different vacant lots, vacant pieces of land, avail... available pieces of land for an integrated process of growing food for the food bank.

So the University of California, for example, steps up and helps us with the cost of rent.

The availability of, uh, volunteers has enabled us to basically plug in to a very large population of folks that just want to do good for the community.

- A huge community.

More than 4,000 people volunteer on this land each year.

Today, they are picking green beans that will be distributed to food pantries across Orange County, serving some of the neediest people living in one of the wealthiest areas of the world.

20 million Californians live within 90 miles of this farm.

More than 2 million of them live in poverty.

[Rob Stewart] What do you want people to really get?

[Claudia Keller] That food and nutritional insecurity is not a supply problem.

It's an access problem.

We have the food.

We have the land.

We have folks that are willing to address that problem.

It's that those that need it the most don't have access to it.

Claudia Keller is CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, and works closely with Solutions for Urban Agriculture.

Today, they are a mighty force.

Claudia's nonprofit partners with 300 food pantries across Orange County.

Because volunteer labor is used to harvest the crops, Second Harvest is able to purchase the vegetables from farmers at a much lower cost.

[Rob] There are people that say, "Why can't someone pull themselves up from their bootstraps?"

I've heard it.

I'd like your response to that.

[Claudia] You can't do anything unless you cover the basics of life, right?

Water and food.

Once we have that covered, we can then worry about things like shelter and clothing, and then worry about things like education and career and raising a family.

- South County Outreach also partners with Second Harvest.

This is what's called a "Client Choice Food Pantry," where recipients select their own food.

Second Harvest veggies are often first choice.

LaVal Brewer runs South County Outreach, where thousands of clients walk these aisles each month.

Many of these clients leave with more than a meal.

[LaVal] The dignity and respect that we provide someone is we're going to... we're going to treat you like you were... you were fully paying with your money.

So, as you walk in, you're going to walk into a regular experience that is a grocery experience.

The difference is when you walk out, you don't pay me anything.

With that, we're going to make sure you get fed.

We're going to make sure you have the things that you need to feed your family, and do it in a... in a way that nourishes the soul and the body, alongside of each other.

[Rob] There was a lady that when she came through the line, she looked at me and in one look, I knew exactly what she was saying.

And she just began to cry.

And she was so overwhelmed at... at the way she was treated here, like a human being, um, in the middle of being human, and it radically impacted her.

And this is- You walk in and it's an experience like you're going to... [LaVal] your local corner market.

[Rob] Or... or better.

And back to that field of dreams, that fertile soil where it all began, we found the volunteers' lives are being changed as well.

[Danae Giehl] I'm very grateful, I should say, and honored and privileged.

Anything to be a part of that.