Tuesday morning at Good Shepherd Food-Bank began the way founder JoAnn Pike would have wanted it.

No, demanded it.

Pike wore her enormous heart on her cloak and broadcast her steadfast convictions over the intercom. Psalms and prayer, much like the announcements at the beginning of a school day. Only this week has been different. The huge warehouse on outer Hotel Road in Auburn had been closed, with good reason, on Monday so it was gearing up on Tuesday.

Volunteers have been expected to sign up and speak every day – except Tuesday. That was JoAnn’s day, in which JoAnn gave her blessing in inimitable style.

Staff member Betty Perreault recalls her friend’s heartfelt prayers for all the donors, drivers, volunteers and needy whose lives their work touched. Pike spoke eloquently, peacefully and poetically.

Once she spoke the final amen, however, Pike signed off with a familiar benediction.

“OK, get back to work.”

Tuesday’s broadcast is now Perreault’s to do. In the interest of tradition, she promises to use that same, terse exhortation.

The work must go on.

Based in L-A

For almost 25 years, Pike’s work for Maine’s hungry grew. It outgrew her family’s small apartment in Auburn, went to Lewiston and then to this 53,000-square foot Auburn warehouse that redistributes more than 9 million pounds of food each year.

Her death last week leaves a life-size void for Good Shepherd colleagues. All miss her spirit of giving while expecting no riches in return. They knew they’d need a large place to welcome people who also wanted to share memories of her after the funeral Monday. So they used the Food-Bank, and closed it just for that day.

“When JoAnn opened her heart,” said Diane Veilleux of Lewiston, “she opened it all the way.”

Veilleux, who’s been a volunteer and office worker at Good Shepherd for 13 years, met Pike with fortunate timing.

A wife and mother to six young children at the time, Veilleux had discovered that pride and her husband’s strong work ethic weren’t always enough to feed their family.

That’s when she learned about the Food-Bank, where there was revolving need for help sorting and labeling food products, cleaning storage and distribution areas, stuffing envelopes and making phone calls.

Volunteering three hours a day entitled Veilleux to take home some groceries, most donated by major retailers such as Hannaford Bros., for her clan of eight.

“What a joy,” Veilleux said, “to realize we could help other families while helping ourselves.”

Veilleux shed joyful tears her first day leaving Good Shepherd, which outgrew two locations in downtown Lewiston before moving into the $3 million center on Hotel Road in the summer of 2001.

Keeping ‘our dignity’

“We qualified for every (financial aid) program out there. We just didn’t want to take it,” Veilleux said. “JoAnn allowed us to keep our dignity.”

Today, dozens of grocers and many trucking companies provide Good Shepherd with the products and the means to transport them to every Maine county. Pike started it all with an infectious vision that sold others on the value of getting dirt under their fingernails.

Doug Bolles jokes that his first encounter with Pike came “in a field of carrots.”

He was a Bowdoin College student with a future in banking. That field of carrots was planted at a time when the group was growing much of its own food, before Hannaford and others came on board. That first day, he was compelled to join her crusade.

After 18 years as a volunteer and then board member at Good Shepherd, Bolles moved his family to Texas three years ago. He was back to give a eulogy.

“Some people inspire us to become Christ-like because they test our patience,” Bolles said. “JoAnn inspired us to be Christ-like because she lived out his example.”

Her friends say they often witnessed happenings that defied explanation.

“We got used to miracles,” said Betty Ellis, another longtime volunteer. “If we needed funds, a check would arrive in the mail. If we needed a person with certain skills, they would appear.”

In 1988, Pike had a dream involving a truck carrying the brand name McCain, the frozen food company.

She considered it reason enough to call McCain’s corporate offices.

“They’ve been back-hauling (goods to Aroostook County) for us ever since,” Ellis said.

Good Shepherd volunteers note that their building doesn’t represent a corporation. Busy as the place is, it’s more about grace and goodness than boxes and freezers.

Pike conveyed those qualities to more hands and hearts than anyone can count. So those left behind don’t fret the future. And at least some portion of the remaining mortgage will be paid through contributions in her memory.

For now, they laugh. They cry. They share a story, laughing and crying some more.

And then they hear a voice not-so-gently reminding them, there’s work to be done.

Kalle Oakes is staff columnist. He may be reached by e-mail at [email protected].