Max and Sherry Wachter were recognized for their volunteer efforts with the Cargill Cares Food Pantry Monday, April 24, by being named the 2017 Columbia Daily Tribune Hero Individual Volunteer of the Year.
The 16th annual awards honor "the outstanding volunteers who give their time and talents to make life better in the mid-Missouri community," the web page said.
Other individual volunteers nominated this year worked with organizations including the Audubon Society, the Humane Society, Independent Living services, suicide prevention, children's homes, Jaycees, United Way, The Salvation Army and veterans' support organizations.
The Columbia newspaper, Joe Machens Dealership and Landmark Bank will contribute $400 to the California-based food pantry, as a result.
The Wachters were nominated by their fellow volunteers for their work during the last two years as volunteer-ordering and distribution managers.
They help organize the pantry and coordinate volunteers, order items and distribute donated food to about 350 families each month. Plus, they help coordinate the Buddy Packs program, which provides a backpack of food to about 200 students through five Moniteau County schools.
The Wachters moved with their three children - Raymond, Zackariah, and Rheanna - to California in 2002 to get away from city living, Max Wachter told the Democrat.
They helped with the monthly Central Missouri Food Bank mobile food pantry in Moniteau County for several years. And they served at summer feeding programs.
"We were always looking for opportunities to give back, make a difference and share that with the kids," Sherry Wachter told the Democrat.
Then, after 35 years on the railroad, his life changed with an accident in 2011 that left him with a broken back.
But "God can use that," Max Wachter said.
Just more than a decade before, the couple had been drawn to church and restored their faith.
"God grabbed us and took us from there," he said.
Now the Wachters devote hundreds of volunteer hours each month at the food pantry, where they have seen God-moments, answered prayer and neighbors loving one another.
The Cargill Cares Food Pantry, 303 Latham Road, is open for distribution 3-5 p.m. the first, second and third Thursday and Friday of each month, as well as 9-11 a.m. on the third Saturday.
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