Volunteer Spotlight: Art Lindbeck, Chehalem Senior Center
BY ISAAC ARTHUR
“I like that idea of paying things forward. I know I could be a real selfish son-of-a-gun if I wanted to, but it’s just that if you give a little bit of yourself that goes a whole lot further than you know. That’s what you gotta do. You gotta help people.”
Art Lindbeck has been quietly serving his community from the kitchen at Chehalem Senior Center for the past several years, ever since his neighbor first approached him about helping with the meals-on-wheels program.
“I figured at least I can contribute from behind-the-scenes. That’s what makes me feel good about this, because somebody gets to eat,” Art said.
Volunteer work, and Meals-on-Wheels in particular, seems to run in the family for Art: his older brother was also a delivery driver for a similar program in Portland, where Art was born and raised. He comes from a big family and knows both the hardships and the joys of life. As a younger man, Art volunteered for military service in Vietnam, followed by a 20-year career in the Air National Guard, where he supported flight missions from Arizona to Klamath Falls, Oregon. After retiring from military service, he worked 10 years at Rogue Trucking, a job that, as he put it, brought him from “coast-to-coast and border-to-border” and showed him the beauty of the often unseen parts of the country, “even Kansas and Nebraska,” he cracked.
No longer making the long haul across the continent, Art now enjoys the peaceful quiet, and small pleasures of life in Newberg, where he lives with his wife and mother-in-law. He recalls summer walks outside and how still everything was (“It was just like somebody had thrown a blanket over the city.”), or a group of schoolchildren from Antonia Crater Elementary who visited the senior center to sing carols at Christmas time (“They were a little bit nervous, but they did a good job on it. I mean, it was really, really neat.”)
Art continues to come in to help prepare food week after week, year after year, pausing only briefly in 2020 out of precaution, but he couldn’t stay away for long, noting, “As far as I’m concerned, that’s one less set of hands that could be doing something,” and “I wish more people got involved with it.”
Talking to Art, it’s his good-natured optimism and humble gratitude that shine through the most.
“I’ve been fortunate. I don’t have anything to complain about. I’ve had a good life. And if the good Lord calls me home tomorrow - hey, I got to do a lot that a lot of people don’t get to do. It’s true. Life is beautiful!”
If you are interested in joining any of these activities, finding out more about what the senior center has to offer, or would like to volunteer, please visit the senior center webpage or call (503) 537-9404.
