Lois Bradford is taking advantage of the free time retirement brings. She volunteers at both the Iola Area Ministerial Alliance food bank and the Iola Senior Citizen’s Thrift Store.
She began volunteering at the food bank in 2003, a few years after she retired from Allen County Hospital where she worked as a nurse for 30 years and then in admissions for 14 years.
She gets to the food bank early on Tuesdays to help unload the produce donated by Walmart through Feed America.
Bradford said she has a special method of storing the items to allow their easy retrieval when things get busy on distribution nights, Tuesdays and Thursdays.
“That way I am not running all over the place,” she said.
The number of people the bank serves depends on the time of the year and the time of the month, according to Bradford.
“A lot of people get food stamps but they run out toward the last of the month so sometimes we have more (clients)” then, she said.
Bradford said the majority of the clients she serves are either retired seniors who come in for fresh produce because they can not afford it or younger people because they cannot find a job. Helping people who are “down on their luck” is what she most enjoys about the position. Besides food, Bradford said, she enjoys giving them tips about job openings and referring them to other services that may help them. She also shares her passion for gardening.
“I tell them about my container gardening,” she said. “Anyone can do that, even if they live in an apartment.”
Bradford grows an array of potatoes, peppers and tomatoes on her back porch. She learned to garden from her aunt, Mildred Beam, who was wheelchair bound due to multiple sclerosis.
“She just wheeled her wheelchair out,” to tend to her plants, Bradford said.
Volunteering for one agency is not enough for the mother of two, grandmother of five and great-grandmother of 11, who only admits that she is in her 80s. On Mondays she volunteers for a seven-and-a-half hour shift at the thrift store where she inspects the donations, prices them and puts them out for sale.
“I like to help people,” she said.
It gives her a sense of satisfaction, she said, to see people find bargains. She is especially proud of the grocery bag sale the store promotes. Customers can fill a paper sack full of clothes for $1.
“If you have kids, you really should come in and get your clothes there,” she said.
Bradford enjoys the crew she works with and considers them to be her friends.
“We all kind of divide up our jobs and we know what to do when and where. It just goes really well,” she said.
Bradford is not one to let life pass her by. She knows how to use Facebook, developed after she turned 60.
“It’s the only way you can keep up with people anymore,” she said.
It is the help that she has received from others during her years that compels her to give back.
“If your neighbor needs help with their lawn or showing them how to plant a container garden, (then) be a good neighbor,” she said.
Bradford said she would consider adding another volunteer activity to her schedule if the right one came along.
April is National Volunteer Month.
Volunteering bears fruit
