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RETIREES VOLUNTEER AT FOOD BANK In the Forest Service they were district rangers, soil scientists, lands and minerals specialists and engineers. Their combined Federal service totals 163 years. Now retired, they continue serving their community by volunteering for such worthy causes as the United Way, Red Cross, SMART reading and the Senior Center. When Frank Erickson, Public affairs Officer for the Winema National Forest, caught up with the five of them in early March they were contributing time and energy to a cause they are particularly interested in: the Klamath-Lake Counties (Oregon) Food Bank. The light snow falling did not dampen their spirits one bit as they unloaded 30,000 pounds of food from a semi-trailer rig. Retirees Ed Blaydon, Garwin Carlson, Elmer Ogburn, Marv Stump and Fred Weaver all live in Klamath Falls, Oregon and retired from the Winema National Forest between 1989 and 1998. They are a fun-loving, irreverent bunch of fellows who combine hard work with plenty of jokes, wisecracks and opinions about everything, particularly the modern-day Forest Service. Being around them is a lot like listening to Click and Clack on National Public Radio on Saturday mornings. Marv was the first to become involved with the Food Bank in 1996. He recruited the others. A semi-truck and trailer from the Oregon Food Bank in Portland arrives in Klamath Falls early in the morning the first Thursday of every month. Inside the trailer are all kinds of non-perishable foods: USDA commodities, dented canned goods returned from grocery stores, and donations from food manufacturers and distributors ranging from Gardenburgers to Lucky Charms breakfast cereal. The semi provides about half the food needed by the Klamath-Lake Counties Food Bank each month. The rest is donated locally. It would take the small food bank staff most of a day to unload the semi if they had to do it on their own. With the help of the ex-Forest Service volunteers the job gets done in an hour and a half. Ed runs the forklift, carefully hoisting pallets of food from the back of the semi, then delivering them to points where the hand crews take over. Garwin, Elmer, Fred, Marv (and George, a retiree from Klamath County government) unload the pallets then inventory, sort, carry and stack the cases of food in various trailers, coolers and warehouse rooms used for storage. They work with the efficiency of the proverbial 'well-oiled machine.' When the work is done they gather for breakfast at a local eatery called “Starvin’ Marvins.” As well as performing the manual labor, Marv, Ed and Fred serve as three of the food bank’s nine board of directors. “Any volunteer agency is only good as its board of directors,” says Niki Sampson, executive director of the food bank. “These guys are not only great board members, but they’re working board members as well.” Why do they do this? Marv says simply: “It helps a lot of folks and we enjoy doing it.” The Klamath Lake Counties Food Bank serves a 15,000 square mile area in rural Southern Oregon, providing food to 41 agencies in the two counties who in turn distribute it to those in need. Last year the food bank distributed 11,000 food boxes to feed 33,000 people and provided additional food to organizations that in turn prepared 105,000 meals for children, senior citizens and others. One in six families in the two-county area utilize food bank services each year.
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