Ranee Delong discusses the Winlock-Vader Food Bank on Monday morning in Winlock.
Ranee Delong, Joanne Rees, Liz Schroeder, Susan Bradshaw, Shirley Atkinson and Theresa Fegles are seen Monday morning at Rowdy Rooster Bistro in Winlock.
A group of volunteers dubbed “the magnificent eight” run the Winlock-Vader Food Bank. They have for years.
“They are 20 years older than me and all of them could do circles around me,” said Marilynn Williams, who is the treasurer for the food bank board. “(The name) was me being smart and describing the people downstairs. I just think of them that way — the magnificent eight. They care so much about this community, and they go out of their way, and they are here every week rain or shine.”
The Winlock-Vader Food Bank is open on Wednesdays and serves anywhere from 40 to more than 100 people each week, or 240 families per month. There is a consistent group of eight volunteers — Ranee Delong, Shirley Atkinson, Susan Bradshaw, Theresa Fegles, Liz Schroeder, Joanne Rees and Stan and June Taloff.
Stan Taloff, 95, was the director for the food bank for 25 years, but has been a volunteer for 30. His wife, June Taloff, has been a volunteer for 25 years.
“In my job, I was transferred around a lot to different places,” Stan Taloff said. “We found that in order to become part of the community, you had to volunteer and get involved with the community.”
June Taloff, 88, brings a birthday cake for each volunteer to celebrate their birthday. The two said they have no plans to retire from the food bank.
“When we’re not physically able to volunteer (we will retire from the food bank), but that time hasn’t arrived yet,” Stan Taloff said. “We lived in Winlock for 42 years. We retired three years ago and we moved. … We now are in a retirement community, but we still go in and help on Wednesdays.”
The food bank is entirely run by volunteers.
“I met this group when I was asked to cook upstairs at the food bank’s deli,” Williams said. “When I started here, I was just the cook and I got talked into being the treasurer of the board. There is a downstairs group — they really kind of run it themselves.”
Until interviewed, the group didn’t know about their nickname.
“Did you know Marilynn calls the eight of us … the magnificent eight?” Atkinson asked the group.
Six of the eight volunteers visited the Rowdy Rooster Bistro on First Street in Winlock for an interview with The Chronicle this week. The Bistro doubles as a thrift store, and funds the Winlock-Vader Food Bank when it doesn’t receive enough food donations.
“If we don’t get the donations in to cover what we are going to need, then the income from the Rowdy Rooster and the thrift store are in an account (the board of directors) can get into,” Delong said.
Delong, who has volunteered for the last four or five years, is the most recent member of the crew. She said she only gives herself three days a year that she can classify as “bad days.” She doesn’t have to use all the bad days by the end of December, but she can’t roll them over into the following year.
“Sometimes I don’t use them all,” Delong said. “It has to be really, really bad before I can claim a bad day.”
When asked who of the six volunteers has worked at the food bank the longest — the Taloffs were at a doctor’s appointment — the table immediately pointed to Atkinson. She has been a volunteer since Nov. 11, 1992. She knew the exact day after referring to her journal.
“We have had some funny things happen,” Atkinson said. “You never know (who) is going to come in that day. We don’t allow men in without shirts on. A long time ago, this man came in bare chested and I said ‘no shirt, no service.’ He said ‘you’re kidding?’”
She wasn’t kidding.
“He came back in a little bit,” Atkinson said. “He had gotten a cardboard box and he had cut the arms out and got his head through it. He came in wearing a cardboard box and said ‘is that alright?’ I said, ‘well, you’re covered up.’”
Atkinson was a teacher for Winlock School District before she retired in 1992. Volunteer Theresa Fegles is also a retired teacher.
“I retired in 2007 and then a few months after that, all of a sudden here I was,” Fegles said.
Atkinson and Fegles didn’t remember their first day, but Bradshaw said she was nervous when she started volunteering.
“There were all these people and I was just standing around,” Bradshaw said. “I didn’t know what to do. Stan said ‘just stand there and observe everything.’”
Bradshaw, who has volunteered at the food bank for 12 years now, said she isn’t scared of the job anymore.
“They’re just a great group of very caring, giving people,” Williams said. “I swear their bodies do it out of memory.”
