Aurora couple gives 26 years to food pantry, Meals on Wheels
An Aurora couple is living proof that no one is ever too old to volunteer and give back to the community. Jim and Barb Johnson, ages 85 and 81, moved to East Park Villa about a month ago. They are well-known throughout the county for their nearly 26 years of work with the Hamilton County Food Pantry and Aurora Senior Center’s Meals on Wheels program.
“I guess this is our nature,” Barb said. “We have been working with community, so if you’re working as a teacher or you’re serving somebody meals, you become aware and you choose responsibility.”
The Johnsons grew up in Almena, Kan., where their families were no strangers to helping others in need within their community.
“My parents were my models,” Barb said. “They did a lot in the community. It’s always been easy for me to get involved in something that seemed to have a need.”
Jim’s parents were involved with the senior center in their community, which inspired him to work with the senior center in Aurora after the couple moved to Aurora in 1974.
“They went into town and often took me along to the senior center,” Jim explained. “They got a lot of good out of that, so I thought, ‘Well, this is something I could do.’”
The Johnsons’ passion for helping people also shaped their careers. Barb worked as a case worker with ADC in Grand Island while Jim was an educator in Aurora Public Schools and served as principal of the elementary school for 26 years. Prior to retiring, Jim also served on the city council for 17 years and during that time had briefly stepped into the role of mayor for six months.
“He saw needy kids and he saw families with problems,” Barb explained. “We haven’t had a hard time finding a need to do something.”
Prior to their retirement in 2000, the Johnsons helped create of the food pantry in Aurora in March of 1998. Barb served as chairman when it was first established in the community.
“I’ve been here for a long time and it is well, well-funded by local communities,” Jim stated. “Probably one of the best in the state I have to guess. That’s a credit to this community.”
Since the beginning Barb and Jim have been volunteering three times a week at the food pantry.
The work wasn’t without its challenges, however. Barb still remembers a confrontation with a disgruntled visitor early on in her service at the food pantry.
“He came in just angry and I told him, ‘We’re not going to do this; settle down. We’re going to serve you, but you’re not going to act like this in here,’” she recalls telling the man. “(Years later), he invited us to his 50th wedding anniversary.”
In addition to continuing to volunteer at the food pantry, Jim still continues to deliver meals two times a week to people in the rural communities.
He said it’s often bittersweet not being able to spend more time with the people he delivers food to, noting that some don’t have anyone to talk to besides him.
“You can’t stop and spend time with them,” Jim said. “If you have 10 to 15 stops and if you spend five minutes talking to people at each one, that’s an extra 50 minutes for you.”
He also said sometimes just getting the attention of the recipients can be a challenge.
“You have to respect... his privacy,” Jim explained. “When you knock on the door, should you knock or holler? Because some people can’t get to the door. They have walkers and maybe it takes them ten minutes to get to the door. So we have to figure out how we can give them the max amount of privacy and yet not be a handicap from asking someone to come from the back room.”
Sometimes, he said, his visits have led to welfare checks on the residents.
“If we have something where you can’t reach someone, then I call the senior center and they contact emergency services and I’ve done that several times,” Jim commented.
Barb said, however, that even those brief moments of interaction with Jim makes an impact and can make a difference for the people he delivers to.
“(You build) trust with the people and they trust you because you’ve been there to deliver meals all of the time,” she stated.
The Johnsons’ years of service through the food pantry and Meals on Wheels have not gone unnoticed by the community. In 2005, they were presented with the Humanitarian Award by the Aurora Area Chamber and Development Corporation.
“We were pleased and proud,” Barb commented.
“They pulled a fast one on us,” Jim added.
The Johnsons say as they continue their work with the helping programs, they don’t see age as a barrier to volunteering.
“We can do what you can do,” Jim stated. “There are other people doing volunteer work and what it takes is knowledge. Maybe it’s self-serving, but we need to do something and if you can do something that’s worthwhile, why not?”