Beverly Spring calls her path to becoming a regular volunteer at Opportunity Junction (OJ) a God Story. It all started with a little trailer named Tag-a-Long Suzie.
She’d first seen the trailer dilapidated on the side of the road and decided to take it home. As an avid recycler and re-user – and someone who retired from a 32-year union career of climbing telephone poles to repair the lines for AT&T – Beverly leapt at the chance to work with her hands and breathe life back into the abandoned relic from the ’50s.
“It had the original black and gold California plates, and I like old things, and I like them to look nice,” she said.
She spent a year restoring the 5 by 7 trailer to its former glory, complete with Model A fenders. But once finished, it sat idle in her garage.
In the meantime, she found a calling for volunteerism. After helping with OJ’s polling station during the election season, a staff member noticed that Beverly had a truck and asked if she would be willing to transport groceries from the food bank to the OJ office. As part of OJ’s programs, participants receive groceries and hot lunches.
“It just kind of spilled over, when they said, ‘We have a real need for someone to transport this food,’” Beverly said. “So I said, ‘Okay, I’ll try it.’”
She decided it was time to put Tag-a-Long Suzie to good use.
“It was just meant to be. I was meant to see that trailer on Delta Fair abandoned,” Beverly said. “It was just the series of events that was meant for me to end up using that trailer to help the greater good. Because I would have never thought of that. God made that plan for me, and it just worked out in His favor.”
Beverly continues to commit her time every Friday morning to loading the groceries from the food bank onto Tag-a-Long Suzie, before delivering them to OJ’s office. She even makes sure nothing goes to waste. If some of the produce has gone bad, she brings it home for composting. She also recycles the packaging.
While Beverly never realized she would enjoy volunteering, she said the work that pairs helping others with being outdoors and active has been a perfect fit for her in her retirement.
“I’m helping my community, and I like the feeling I get from that.”
OJ is always in need of extra hands for food bank deliveries. Interested volunteers can find more information here: https://www.opportunityjunction.org/support-us/volunteer.
