Volunteering keeps 100 year old going strong

MT. ANGEL – At an age when most people have even ordinary tasks done by others, Verna Scharbach is still doing for others.

A lifelong Mt. Angel resident and great-great-grandmother has been volunteering with Mission Benedict for 30 years. 

That she turns 100 years old on June 24 won’t prevent her from volunteering at the food bank twice a week.

“I’m going to do this until I drop dead,” Scharbach said. “I’m not going to quit. My driver’s license is good until I’m 102.”

Mission Benedict essentially started in Scharbach’s garage.

The sisters from the Benedictine Sisters of Mt. Angel established St. Joseph Shelter, a transitional housing program for homeless families, in 1988.

They started a food bank along with the shelter and operated it out of Scharbach’s garage for its first years.

Over the years she became synonymous with the food bank.

“When she comes today she’ll probably have bags of clothes in the back that neighbors have dropped off,” said Sister Angela Meister, formerly the program director of Mission Benedict.

When Mission Benedict moved to the basement of St. Joseph, Scharbach went along with it.

Volunteers have come and gone, but Scharbach has been the constant.

“When I first started working here, that used to be our clothes sorting room down there and she came in every day, practically, and worked on sorting the clothes and neatening them up and getting them ready to go out,” volunteer Marilyn Johnson said.

“And then she’d help in the food room when the food came in, stocking shelves and things. It’s only been the last couple years that she’s gone to sitting down at the desk and signing people in, but she is 99, almost 100.”

The past few years Scharbach has had to use a walker.

Though she isn’t carrying around cases of food or moving boxes of clothes, she is no less valuable to Mission Benedict.

“Having Verna sit in that chair every week makes other people want to volunteer,” said Laura Scarbro, program coordinator at Mission Benedict. “They think to themselves, ‘Well, if she can get here twice a week to volunteer, so can I.’”

Scharbach is not a flashy person and has had the same humble Ford sedan for years. Until recently she drove herself wherever she needed to go.

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For years she went to Salem in the mornings to participate in a dancing program at Center 50+, but would leave early on Wednesdays and Fridays so she could make it back to Mt. Angel in time to volunteer at Mission Benedict.

Now one of her daughters, Susan or Nancy, drive her to the food bank twice a week.

In 2012, the Mt. Angel Chamber of Commerce named Scharbach the volunteer of the year.

What she cares about, however, is the friends she’ll see each time she comes to Mission Benedict and making new friends with the mission’s clients.

“She’s community minded and really believes in helping the poor,” said Nancy Scharbach. “She’s kind of an odd duck. She spent her whole life here. She got married when she was 17. She still lives in the same house that she and my dad built. She’s kind of remarkable for her openmindedness.”

Scharbach grew up in Mt. Angel in a time when going to town meant hitching up a horse to a buggy.

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She has been volunteering since her 50s.

She started at the Mt. Angel Community and Senior Center and added in Mission Benedict about 30 years ago.

“Somebody asked me to be the boss one time and I said I don’t want to be no boss, I want to be a follower,” Scharbach said.

A few years ago, Scharbach had a fall and was asked not to volunteer with the Mt. Angel Senior Center anymore.

Scarbro said Scharback was afraid she would be asked not to come back to volunteer with Mission Benedict due to her age.

But Scarbro has a special present at Friday's 100th birthday party at Mission Benedict. It was a contract to spend the next 35 years volunteering there.

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bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com or Twitter.com/bpoehler