The Warwick Rotary Club planted a lot of good will Thursday although by the time it is harvested, people will never know the club had a hand in it.

As a community service project organized by member Brad Connor, members spent a couple of hours in the hot sun doing a variety of chores including weeding, planting and spreading mulch at the Westbay Farm on Centerville Road. The land, once the working Barton Farm was eyed as a site for residential development until the city stepped in to save it for open space.

Several years ago, some fields were turned over to Westbay Community Action to be used as a working farm, with the produce going to the Westbay Marketplace.

Steve Stycos of Cranston, who has served on the Cranston School Committee, the Cranston City Council and ran and lost in a primary for Cranston mayor, works as Westbay’s farmer.

He has a team of 12 volunteers who show up during the week to do a variety of chores depending on the season. The result of their work is an annual harvest of more than 20,000 pounds of fresh produce that supplies the marketplace on Jefferson Boulevard as well as being sold from the farm barn. Stycos doesn’t use herbicides or pesticides on the farm.

Stycos assigned Rotarians jobs as they arrived and except for a few, like Steve McCartney and Bernie Rinn, who cleaned buckets for pickers and did other barn tasks quickly disbursed into the fields. Stycos estimated their work accomplished in about two hours would have taken him and his regular volunteers at least a day to complete.

Warwick Police Chief Connor also arranged for box lunches for his fellow Rotarians. But he didn’t get one. Shortly after noon he was alerted of an incident involving a gun and rushed off.

By comparison farming is a gentle pace.

The farm will hold its annual plant sale from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, May 24. Those interested in doing volunteer farm work should contact Jill Christian at 921-1299.