Helping food bank is this man’s hobby

BUTTE – Shopping is a hobby for Bill Madlena, a retiree with a part-time janitorial job, but he’s hardly the materialistic sort.

Madlena likes to fill shopping carts to capacity at a supermarket here, then give the food – hundreds of dollars worth each month – to charity.

Gov. Judy Martz, who is from Butte, once teased Madlena about the way in which he organizes the contents of his cart, fitting in as much as possible.

Madlena gives the Butte Food Bank an average of $600 in food each month.

“It makes me feel good that I am doing something for a lot of people that aren’t as fortunate as I am,” he said.

For about four years now, the widowed father of five has been buying food to give away, leaving his purchases in the back of a Safeway store for pickup by workers from the food bank.

Until recently, his monthly donations were given anonymously “because I didn’t see the point to making it known,” said Madlena, who retired from a chemical company after 20 years there. The food bank called him “the Safeway Angel.”

“We don’t have anybody else who contributes that amount of items in that consistency – that is unique to the Safeway Angel,” said Joanne Cortese, who directs the food bank with her husband.

Madlena’s identity was revealed to the food bank after a new Safeway manager noticed the pile of groceries in the back of the store last summer, and asked why they were there.

Determined to see him receive credit for his generosity, manager Kathy Street eventually caught up with Madlena and contacted The Montana Standard about his charity. Madlena hopes the news coverage will encourage greater giving to those in need.

When Madlena began shopping for others he patronized a Butte supermarket that has since closed. Back then, he donated about $40 worth of food from time to time.

With the escalation in his shopping, Madlena moves methodically from aisle to aisle, searching for bargain prices on nonperishables such as pasta, macaroni-and-cheese packages, cake mixes, sugar and pancake mix.

When one is full, top to bottom, he sets it aside and grabs another.

“Sometimes it’s hard to shop that way,” Madlena said. “There is a certain amount of energy involved in packing that stuff, and it takes close to two hours to shop that way because you are looking for the best bang for your buck.”