Mesa woman shows a million kindnesses

Apr. 3—Margaret Taylor proves that it's not the hours you work in a week but what you do with those hours that counts the most.

For the last 11 years, the 85-year-old Mesa resident has volunteered between five to 10 hours a week as the sole food meal coordinator for the East Valley Men's Center, organizing and coordinating food donations from the community.

Her work has made it possible to serve nearly one million meals to those men experiencing homelessness by providing two hot meals and a sack lunch for the 110 residents at EVMC 365 days a year.

Bridget Talty, senior community engagement coordinator for A New Leaf, said while her job doesn't require her to get hands on and every staff member holding a food handler's card, Taylor has not hesitated to roll up her sleeves and step in to help in any way the nonprofit needs or whenever someone asks her.

"I've served meals with her here, somebody comes up short with volunteers and she'll jump in and help," Talty said. "She will jump in and help the agency whenever you ask her to do something."

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Arizona's homeless population grew by 23.4% from 2020-2022 and nearly 60% of the estimated 13,553 homeless are unsheltered.

EVMC provides "a safe haven" for men of all ages experiencing homelessness with an assigned bed and storage area for their personal possessions for the duration of their stay.

Along with a personal space, EVMC also provides employment assistance, transportation assistance and substance abuse support, to ensure these men can get back on their feet with a job and an apartment of their own.

The age of the men at EVMC starts as young as 18 and includes "plenty" of group home teens whose kids aged out of the system and don't have any skills.

Essential to restoring a sense of normalcy, every morning residents at EVMC receive a hot breakfast before heading off to work with a sack lunch and returning in the evening for a hot dinner.

It all started in January 2009 when Taylor's world completely changed.

She submitted for retirement after 37 years as a first-grade teacher at Edison Elementary School and lost her husband Robert of 35 years to esophageal cancer.

"That made me need to keep working somehow because once you put in your retirement papers you can't take them back," Taylor said.

Initially, she started volunteering under a program with AmeriCorps VISTA program through the Mesa United Way, which assigned her to A New Leaf.

"That was really convenient for me, which is probably one of the reasons I continued volunteering because it was close," Taylor said.

When her time with the two-year program ended, Taylor simply stayed on as a volunteer with A New Leaf and when another staff member left, she took over the meal scheduling in August 2011.

"When she quit. I was the only one left who knew anything about the scheduling," Taylor said. "I just continued on as a volunteer."

Like a duck to water, Taylor seemed to take to the role rather easily getting her first big donor in 2011 from car dealer Cardinaleway Mazda Mesa.

An entourage from Cardinaleway stopped by to check out the center and after talking with Taylor, the dealer has served a meal at the center every first Friday of the month since 2011.

The work doesn't stop at just getting new donors to sign up: Taylor must ensure they commit to their obligation weeks or months in advance and keep to their scheduled meal.

"God forbid someone no shows or forgets and we have a hundred hungry fellows," Talty said. "That's what we can't have, so she really monitors that tightly."

Most donors include individuals and churches around the area with a working relationship with EVMC.They would buy food, prepare it in the on-site kitchen and serve residents themselves.

Taylor's work over the past decade has orchestrated a race among companies to not only see who gets to serve the men, but, most importantly, when they do.

"Our shelter has no budget for food," Talty said. "It's almost like the donors become competitive."

Where most staff would find it tedious waiting on calls and emails from potential donors, Taylor said volunteering doesn't require a lot of time.

"I understand why they left it to me for so long because I could come in and our providers got to know me and know that I was only there part-time," Taylor said. "So, they were willing to wait for a response."

Taylor takes no credit for her work and instead praises the community for what they provide to those individuals in a desperate time of need.

"The variety of people, churches, individuals who are coming that they will go one time and then keep coming back, it's unbelievable how helpful the community is," Taylor said.

Even while the pandemic raged and the nonprofit adjusted to not having cooks in-house because many of them are seniors, Talty said, the center has started to ramp up with volunteers again.

But even through the pandemic, Taylor still ensured the men ate every night encouraging donors with the importance of their work and what it means to EVMC's residents.

While she doesn't plan to leave her role at EVMC anytime soon, Taylor said she recognizes time's ticking reality and wants to take some time to see her grown grandchildren more, raising questions for A New Leaf about the future.

"I'm not planning but I am 85 years old and who knows if I'm going to live five more years or not," Taylor said.