Jean Jones played many roles in her 14 years at the Fort Bragg Food Bank. She was executive director, on the board of directors, a client, a volunteer — and everything else.
She retired due to health reasons this fall.
“I miss the staff, the volunteers, but especially the clients. I love them all and want them to know that,” she said.
Jones remembers many high points, especially in the lives of clients.
“There are so many stories, so much courage by the clients in the face of hardship, illness or addictions,” she said.
When anyone walked into the Food Bank over the past decade, Jones was the face seen through the registration window, which she always kept open.
She has an uncanny ability to remember the names of hundreds of people. Everybody at the Food Bank asked Jean when a name was forgotten or a story needed retelling. She helped me remember the names of people I had met or simply seen weeks before so I could tie them into a story I was writing for this series.
She had to retire due to the effects of morbid obesity. One of the most painful symptoms of that illness was some failing of her famous memory.
“Oxygen wasn”t getting to my brain,” she said, as she now sits in a tangle of oxygen tubing.
She wants others to avoid worsening obesity early enough to prevent disability.
“Put it in there that is what I have. And tell people if you have a sitting job, don”t just sit. Get up and walk around when you are talking on the phone. Find reasons to walk, to exercise,” she said.
She also has diabetes, high blood pressure and some genetic predispositions.
“Plus I”m Native American and old,” she said with a smile.
Jones is now forced to stay at home, and she sees television dramas far less evocative than the real life struggles she gave encouraging words to over the years.
“I remember a lot of great moments. Like when someone would earn their five-year chip for sobriety and they would be beaming and happy,” she said.
“I remember a woman that came into the Food Bank, and she was so weak she could barely stand. We gave her some food,” she said.
Food Bank workers also connected that client with other local non-profits.
“Two years later she came back in and said, You saved my life that day,”” she said.
Jean invites anyone who thinks of Food Bank clients in a negative way to go and see the real stories.
“So many of our clients have cancer. Many have had painful back surgeries,” she said.
She said the highest profile clients are among the few always seeking a handout.
“These are the same people you might see at Harvest or Safeway looking for a handout. The core clients are invisible to the wider community. They get their food and go home and stretch it, they stretch every dollar for their family.”
Although Jones is now affixed to her couch, she is far from out of the stream of helping. A homeless man she met at the Food Bank camps in his van in her driveway. Another is using the garage temporarily. Family members tell her what is going on outside her walls. People seek her advice and help.
Grandkids parade in and out of the house, while three large dogs watch over Jones. She knew all about the needs and plight of a family burned out of their trailer at Wildwood Campground this weekend.
A life in charitable work wasn”t always Jones” path. She was a cook for a local bed and breakfast and had worked in the local hospitality industry when she suffered a leg injury and ended up going to the Food Bank as a client, then as a volunteer, the experience changing her perceptions.
Soon she found herself working there, as an assistant to the executive director. She also joined the board of directors.
She survived some tumultuous times in the 1990s, once being fired. When that executive director left, she was invited back to be co-executive director to help repair badly neglected books and employees.
Jones, 63, enjoys telling her many stories with a dash of humor. She recited the many titles she has held over the years, while describing how much work everybody does beyond the job description.
“I did everything but drive the forklift,” she said.
Season of Sharing
The purpose of the Advocate-News and The Mendocino Beacon”s annual Season of Sharing fund drive is to raise money the Food Bank can use year-round.
This year”s target is an ambitious $36,000, which would bring the total raised since our first fund drive in 1995 to just over $200,000.
The Community Foundation of Mendocino County administers the Season of Sharing free of charge as a courtesy to the newspapers. Every cent received goes to the Food Bank.
Checks should be addressed to the Community Foundation of Mendocino County (CFMC), and mailed to the newspaper at P.O. Box 1188, Fort Bragg, 95437, or dropped by our office, located at 450 N. Franklin St., Fort Bragg.
If you have any questions about the fund drive, call us at 964-5642. The fund drive began Nov. 12 and will end Dec. 31.
Season of Sharing has raised $16,745 to date. Our sincerest thanks this week to Michael Dell”Ara, Marianne McGee, Christina and John Rossum, Fred Zatkoff, Trinity Lutheran Church Hope Circle, Mel and Susan McKinney, Susanne and Richard Norgard, Ben and Nancy Housel, Ronald and Lola Brashear, Winston and Becky Bowen, Jeanette Hansen and five anonymous donors.
We gratefully acknowledge each week”s donors by printing their names in the newspapers, unless they ask to remain anonymous.
Food Bank hours
The Food Bank, 910 N. Franklin, Fort Bragg, is open every weekday but Tuesday. Special senior hours are from 10:45 a.m. to 11:15 a.m., Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The Food Bank is open from 4 to 6 p.m. on Thursdays, a time designed for working people. For information, call 964-9404.
