FREELAND — From a little booth at the end of his driveway along Fox Spit Road, JaNoah Spratt is living proof you’re never too young to make a difference.

“I just wanted to help out with the hungry and stuff,” he said. “And I’ve found a way to do it.”

For the second straight year, JaNoah is harvesting vegetables from the family garden and selling them at the edge of the road. Every penny he makes, he gives to Good Cheer’s food bank.

JaNoah is 8 years old. He got into philanthropy when he was 7.

“He brings tears to my eyes,” said Kay Stanley, JaNoah’s neighbor and a Good Cheer board member for many years. “He’s such a giving child.”

She said JaNoah asked her last year about Good Cheer, how it receives donations from people and sells them to buy food for those who need it.

“He just picked up on that,” Stanley said. “He said, ‘I’ve got a garden, and I’m going to contribute.’”

Before long, JaNoah was dropping off envelopes containing $2 here, $3 there. “I didn’t keep track how much he raised last year,” Stanley said. “I wish I did.”

This year, he got off to a slow start, with a chilly spring and early summer delaying his crop. But in one day of sales on the roadside, he sold out his vegetables, then started selling homemade candles, hand-crafted writing tablets and flowers from the family garden.

In two hours, he made $44. He gave it all to Stanley for Good Cheer.

JaNoah said he’ll be back in his stand with a new inventory soon, and then he’s going to branch out.

“I want to do a match program,” he said. “I’m going to go around to businesses to ask them to match what I raise.”

His goal is to gather another $500 by the end of the season.

“I’m going to start with $50 and work my way up,” he said.

JaNoah was born in northern California, where his parents, Teresa and Todd Spratt, did organic farming and sold worms to organic gardeners. The family moved to Whidbey Island three years ago.

JaNoah is a home-schooler about to start the third grade. And like many 8-year-olds, he enjoys soccer and karate. His favorite subject is science, and his favorite vegetable is broccoli.

His mother says JaNoah took to farming naturally. When he was a toddler, his family would give tours of the vegetables and JaNoah would crawl among the plants and nibble on the produce.

“That’s probably how he got into this,” she said.

The family grows potatoes, leeks, onions, peas, carrots, zucchini, tomatoes, broccoli, carrots cabbage, cucumbers, squash — “just about everything,” Teresa Spratt said. They collect the seeds each year and use them to replant.

JaNoah said he wants to get in the chicken-and-egg business for charity, too. He held his fluttering hen, Chickabee, in his lap as he talked about it.

“I get a bunch of requests for eggs,” he said. “This chicken doesn’t produce enough yet.”

He’s hoping to talk his parents into getting some more birds.

“I just wish she would stop pecking me in the stomach. I think she’s trying to build a nest,” he added, patting the chicken gently.

Stanley said JaNoah is by far the youngest of Good Cheer’s 180 or so volunteers. Last weekend, the organization presented him with an award for his service.

“He’s one in a million,” Stanely said. “He’s a force to be reckoned with. He can set an example for a lot of other people.”

JaNoah likes to look at the big picture.

“If we don’t pitch in with enough money and food, hunger will keep growing and growing and growing until we can’t stop it,” he said.

“If it gets to that point, half the planet will be hungry. We have to contain the hunger we already have.”

Roy Jacobson can be reached at 221-5300 or rjacobson@southwhidbeyrecord.com.