When Don Shafer began volunteering at the Maples, one of Hillsboro Loaves & Fishes Center’s satellite locations, he never thought he’s find love. But that’s exactly what happened. He moved into the Maples Apartment in June 2007 and soon volunteered to help serve hot meals in the community room provided by the Hillsboro Loaves & Fishes Center. He met Anita Goetsch, who was also helping to serve, and the two of them hit it off. It wasn’t long before they were meeting to play cards and going on dates. In August, they announced their engagement, during lunch at the Maples, of course.
Don, who holds a degree from MIT, spent his career as a civil engineer for Ch2MHill and traveled the globe. Early in his working life, while on an assignment with the U.S. State Department in Brazil, he was adopted by the chief of a recently-reformed headhunter. Don has seven children and recently took on the job of coordinator for the Maples satellite meal program. The program has gone from serving about six at lunches to 16 lunches every Tuesday and Thursday.
Anita is a native of Iowa and spent most of her life in the Midwest. She raised two sons and then cared for her mother until she passed away. One of her sons lived in Beaverton and invited her to move out to Oregon. She moved into the Maples in January 2006.
Don and Anita have a total of 69 years of married life between them, so they think they’ve got a handle on marriage. A wedding date has not yet been set, but the volunteers and meal participants from the Maples and Hillsboro Loaves & Fishes Center will certainly be included.
Since 1970 Loaves & Fishes Centers has provided a nutritional and social lifeline for seniors through 35 meal sites in Multnomah, Washington and Clark counties and Meals-On-Wheels delivery to homebound seniors. With the help of more than 7,500 volunteers, the nonprofit, nonsectarian agency now serves 5,000 meals daily and more than 1.3 million meals each year. Loaves & Fishes Centers was named one of the “Ten Most Admired Companies” in the non profit category in Oregon by The Portland Business Journal in 2006.
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