Volunteer affectionately known as "the bouncer"

When Joy-El Culligan first came to the Fairbanks Community Food Bank in 2022, a new MASST participant at age 87, executive director Anne Weaver immediately thought she would make an excellent greeter. The Food Bank had used greeters during the COVID-19 pandemic and managed to keep the operation safely going and steadily growing. As the Food Bank's 2020 Annual Report put it, "Our amazing Mature Alaskans Seeking Skills Training (MASST) workers 'manned' the front door, took pre-entry temperatures, wore masks, and reminded of social distancing . . . So many thanks go out to the MASST program for allowing these willing and wonderful workers to continue in their vital daily role here."

MASST is Alaska's name for the federal program known nationally as SCSEP, or Senior Community Service Employment Program. MASST recruits low-income seniors, 55 and older, to volunteer at public and nonprofit agencies, paying them $15/hour for 20 hours of training a week. The dual goals of the program are to promote useful opportunities for local community service and to move participants into unsubsidized employment to achieve economic self-sufficiency.

Physically small but with a clear voice and large personality, Joy-El was stationed at the entrance to the Food Bank, where she would stop anyone who came inside.

"Staff? Volunteer? Who are you? Let me take your temperature!"

One problem for this greeter was that she has macular degeneration and is legally blind. But that didn't stop her. She took each person's temperature with a forehead thermometer, then she would flip the thermometer around and ask the person to read out the temperature for her. If they were running a fever, they had to go home. Nobody could sneak by her, that's for sure. Her hearing is razor sharp, and she can recognize voices and even footsteps immediately, calling out her hello to people she knows. She can even see how the light changes when people walk by.

For the past three years, she has been a constant presence at the Food Bank. Even in 2022, the pandemic was still dangerous for older folks. Friends asked Joy-El why she would take such a risk.

"I'm going," she said, "because I'm needed there."

That is how she became known as The Bouncer.

She thinks that Congressman Don Young came in one winter day, accompanied by his wife. Both exclaimed that they were burning up, hot as all get out. But the Congressman's temperature was 93 degrees. Then his wife stepped up, exclaiming that she was frying hot. Her temperature was also 93 degrees. Joy-El doesn't think this means anything about politicians, necessarily. Maybe it was the thermometer.

Joy-El has a great sense of humor and laughs easily, telling good stories about herself and her many adventures. When she laughs, her face lights up and her whole upper body rocks back and forth in her chair. Often, she sits at the entrance to the main warehouse in the Food Bank, busily bagging grains or sugar, and always finding time to joke with co-workers.

She was married a few times (four or five) and had eight children, and her best husband was the last one, Al. They met in the 1970s in Missoula, Montana, and lived all over the West. Al passed away five years ago, but Joy-El still shakes her head at his jokes and sayings. They were goldpanners for quite a while, camping and panning for six months at a time between Phoenix and Prescott, Arizona. In 2011, when Joy-El was 75, they

moved to Alaska, arriving in Tok with five feet of snow on the ground. They camped on five acres and cleared the squirrels out of the outhouse. And they continued panning for gold.

Did they ever strike it rich?

Al's wise words: "It's not the gold; it's the adventure."

For the Fairbanks Community Food Bank, it's both the gold and the adventure.

The Food Bank started in 1982 and was organized on the fly for the first few years. Samantha Kirstein became executive director in 1985, and by 1990, they were collecting 300,000 pounds of food in the community each year. Volunteers worked 4,000 hours yearly. The Food Bank moved into a building on Gaffney Street in 1990, but by 1998 they had outgrown the space, moving into a new, spacious building funded by Dennis and Mary Wise. Nowadays, the Food Bank encompasses 50,000 square feet of warehouse and office space. They collect and distribute four million (yes, million) pounds of local food each year, and volunteers give nearly 25,000 hours yearly. They also give over one million pounds of locally collected food to some one hundred agencies annually. There are only twenty regular staff, and over 2000 volunteers.

Over the 45 years the Food Bank has been operating, MASST has placed over 100 participants at the warehouses. They have filled a variety of training positions: Custodian, driver, produce stocker, dry goods organizer, cardboard baler, merchandiser, food box maker, donation greeter, rice bagger. . . Bouncer.

No matter what the work, the Food Bank management provides a healthy place for staff and volunteers. Friendliness, openness, and a consistently upbeat, stable atmosphere are apparent when a visitor walks through the front door.

The people of the Food Bank form a community based on service to the greater community. The staff and volunteers are treated as valuable individuals. Everyone in the offices and warehouse seems connected to others. Greetings and laughs are as abundant as the food. And the managers are constantly making connections with leaders in the Fairbanks community, making a larger and larger network of community service.

When you walk into the main warehouse, a small figure sits at a table to your right. She is bagging rice, sugar, or flour. Another MASST participant, Sandy, also known as Grandma, is ironing paper bags to be reused. Before you can speak, both elders have spoken your name and given you their heartiest greetings.

It's not the rice; it's the adventure.

Jim Warren is in his third year as MASST coordinator for the Northern and Interior Regions, based in Fairbanks.