Growing to share

You could say Richard Shaver is a sharecropper—he’s been sharing crops for 12 years. But “share” is an understatement, considering that Shaver provided fresh vegetables for 4,000 families this year alone.

“The Old Testament idea of tithing was that we give 10 percent. Dick is giving 100 percent,” says A.J. Domines, pastor of St. Mark Lutheran Church, New Stanton, Pa., where Shaver is a member.

Shaver never expected he would feed thousands of people off his land. He wasn’t even a farmer. Now 65, he had a successful career as a defense contractor with five businesses, his own plane, two country-club memberships—and a whole lot of unrest. “Something was bugging me where I didn’t feel fulfilled,” he says. “No matter what I did, I just felt lousy.”