Johnston knows that he’s there to fill more than stomachs. His role is coordinating fellowship and bringing folks together to provide companionship and camaraderie.

“Fellowship and food go together,” he said as he whisked around the stove of Manson Area Community Center to assemble the tortilla chips, lettuce, ground beef and other fixings to deliver to the diners. “It’s beyond cooking here.”

Johnston has been running what he said is a one-man show as the manager, chef, supply purchaser, server and promoter of the Congregate Meals program for about a year and a half. He’s got some ideas in the pipe — more than just food in the oven — to take the program to the next level.

Johnston is invited to churches to raise awareness of the program regularly. Soon, he wants to expand the program to include more seasonal occasions like parties, holiday gatherings and concerts.

-Messenger photo by Elijah Decious
Dave Johnston prepares meals for seniors in Manson. The chef is hoping to spread awareness of the program that provides food and fellowship.

“We just need more outreach to the elderly,” he said. “They’re longing for companionship. Loneliness is a big deal.”

The program has undergone waxes and wanes in attendance over the years, in addition to a move in facilities that impacted attendance.

Johnston disliked the optics of the current location, a multipurpose room that is otherwise empty, where a table is set without much flare or decoration to add color to their day.

“They’re here for an hour and a half, people come here and it’s a very cold space,” he said, hoping to liven it up.

In between working at the grocery store in town and as a voiceover actor in his home studio, he wants to give them as much enjoyment as he gets from serving them.

“In about two hours, you can make someone pretty happy, instead of depressed,” he said. “I think it gives me delight just for them to have a better day.”

To the seniors that eat there, Johnston’s interactions are what dress the table.

“You going to run me out, now?” Louella Moritz teased him as he picked up her plate.

Moritz was apparently not representing the clean plate club that afternoon.

“I like to pick on him,” she said.

But Johnston will remember if you don’t like something. Though rules through Elderbridge funding, which sets the menu, prevent him from taking it all off your plate, he might just give you a little bit of it.

Though Moritz loved to cook while she had a family, the meaning of cooking changed for the former 21-year site manager of the program once her husband passed away.

“That’s why I came to Congregate Meals,” she said — that, and the de facto obligation as a former manager of the program, once she knew that her age had caught up to her in retirement.

Like about 50 others that are served by volunteers through Congregate Meals, Golden Meadows and Meals on Wheels programs, her needs at a different stage in life are better met through the program.

“I treat this like I would if they were my parents in the house,” Johnston said. “I’ve always been fond of the elderly. It’s just how I’m wired.”

Though time is precious at any stage in life, he appreciates how precarious it can be for his attendees, taking note of their stories and appreciating their doting reflections of years gone by. He inquires to know not just the person sitting at the table, but who they were in their youth, just as genuinely as he’d want to know of anyone else.

“The elderly have insight that we forget about,” he said. “We forget who they were when they were young.”

Johnston knows that in between the smart remarks and the pleasantries that there are keys to life held by their stories.

“The challenges they’ve overcome at a ripe age is something to be honored,” he said. “We have a responsibility to the elderly, to make their lives as rich as possible.”

In taking the golden rule to those in their golden years, Johnston lets Manson’s most established residents know that they’re valued and seen, hoping to set the precedent for generations after as they age.

They come for the nutrition, but they stay for the fellowship — something suggested donations can’t buy.