Difference Maker: ‘Saint Bette’ is the guiding force for the Mead Food Bank and an inspiration to students

Bette Monahan’s left wrist is heavy.

It’s not from glitzy jewels or bedazzled diamonds, but something richer, something more meaningful.

All along her left arm is a sleeve of friendship bracelets that the kids she works with, as a paraeducator at Farwell Elementary, have made for her. Every one of the 22 or so bracelets are some sort of vibrant heart, shape or color. A couple are “Hello Kitty”-themed, as the kids know she adores the mouthless cat with a big red bow.

The bundle of bangles on her arm first began to accumulate around the time Taylor Swift went on her Eras tour, Monahan said. She, like many of her students, is a huge fan of the pop star whose tour inspired concertgoers to craft, trade and give away friendship bracelets.

The fruits of Monahan’s labor don’t just show up in colorful embroidery on her wrist, or in her conversations with elementary kids about music icons and anthropomorphic cats. Her impact appears in people’s pantries.

In 1996, Second Harvest was looking for two people to open a food bank in Mead. Monahan’s husband, Kirby, suggested that she be one of the two to do it. So she applied for the position and got it.

First, they opened the food bank in a portable mobile home outside of Farwell Elementary. They had a total of two clients come in the first day. The food bank moved to a steel building outside of the Methodist church she used to attend. Three years ago, the food bank moved to its current location in the old Mead Middle School, right next to Union Stadium.

Across three decades and three locations, Monahan has remained a guiding force in the food bank and in the classroom.

“We went to some event down at Riverfront Park, and a 10-year-old comes screaming, ‘Bette! Bette! Bette!’ Runs up to her, grabs one of the bracelets off of her arm and makes sure that she has it, and talks to her about stuff. And then runs off,” said Jesse Guy. “Then we’re out in the trail in the middle of a conservation area out in the Valley, miles in, and there’s just a random hiker that knows one of the volunteers at Bette’s Food Bank. … So it’s kind of like being with a celebrity when you’re with her.”

Guy was 10 years old and living in a trailer park formerly known as Mead Royale when he first met Monahan. She used to operate a book mobile and would frequently bring a variety of material for the kids in Guy’s neighborhood to read. The books she brought came from her personal collection, and Guy remembers how one of his friends loved R.L. Stine’s “Goosebumps” series so much that Monahan always made sure she had copies for him to take home. Her steady and nurturing presence made Guy start volunteering at the food bank as a preteen. She was a role model for him and his friends when they didn’t have many others.

In 2004, Guy moved into a Habitat for Humanity home on the other side of town with his mother and fell out of touch with Monahan. After a few years hanging around Spokane and another decade in Seattle, Guy found himself back in Mead.

Last year, while working at Yoke’s in the produce department, he cultivated a bit of a relationship with a volunteer from the Mead Bank who came in frequently to pick up food as part of the grocery rescue program.

“I asked if Bette was still there and he said, ‘She certainly is,’ ” Guy said.

After giving the man his contact information to pass along, it took about a week until Monahan showed up at Yoke’s.

“We’ve been pretty close ever since then,” Guy said.

Oftentimes, Guy and Monahan can be found walking together in the park, lifting weights at the YMCA and even playing basketball. Recently, Guy began volunteering at the food bank again. Because the neighborhood he grew up in was riddled with drugs and violence, Guy said he’s tried to put much of his childhood behind him and live, instead, in the present.

“My coping mechanism for the trauma that I dealt with as a child was to block everything out,” Guy said. “And she kind of actually reminded me of some of the good things that happened in my childhood.”

Today, the 37-year-old is just one of seemingly countless people whose lives have been touched by Monahan. Whether it’s helping to distribute 480,000 pounds of food a year or having a matching “Hello Kitty” bracelet with a fifth-grader, her impact stretches far and wide.

But to Monahan, any student or food bank success can only be attributed to the team. When asked why she has continued to return to the food bank year after year, her answer was simple: “Just the team.”

Before the food bank opens at 4 p.m., and in the span of just a few minutes, Monahan hugs at least a dozen people. She exudes a trusting softness that people gravitate toward. That trust has resulted in about 50 regular weekly volunteers and another 20 “floaters” who volunteer when they have the time. The word “micromanage” is a term Monahan said she tries hard to completely avoid. Everyone, even the first-grade volunteers, usually know what to do and how to do it properly once she teaches them.

“It’s really cool because it’s like watching traffic,” Monahan said. “Everyone does their job, puts it in the box, and we do an order every two minutes.”

On an average Wednesday, Monahan said the food bank serves 65 to 75 families. When the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program crisis reached its peak in November, Monahan said they were serving about 100 or more families each week.

Usually, Monahan closes the doors of the food bank at 6:45 p.m. on Wednesdays. During the government shutdown, they served clients until 8:30 p.m.

Monahan was thrilled by the community support the food bank received. Some people handed her $100 to buy more food. Through individual donations, both monetary and otherwise, coupled with donations from local businesses, Monahan and the food bank were able to do what they do best.

Over the course of three decades and multiple food bank locations, there has only been one six-month span when Monahan wasn’t able to volunteer. About 15 years ago, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

One day on the road to recovery, Monahan, donning a wig, was approached by a sixth-grader who innocently said he liked her new haircut. Monahan said thank you, but something felt off.

So she asked one of her teacher friends if she should be honest with students about her diagnosis, or keep it under wraps, so as not to worry any young people.

“And she said, ‘They need to know that people survive,’ ” Monahan said. “Don’t shy away because they might have a mom, or an aunt or a grandma. They need to know if you made it, my mom can make it.”

Years after defeating cancer, Monahan said her color of choice is still pink. Even her hair is a light shade of it.

Monahan’s mother, who taught at an elementary school, bestowed upon her daughter something that has remained at the crux of her philosophy through time, lost connections and cancer. Day in and day out, whether it’s at the school or at the food bank, Monahan insists her work is about cultivating and maintaining relationships. She loves her students the same way her mom did.

“My mom was my role model,” Monahan said. “She wrote to students. She had lunch with students. She’d come out to visit me from Nebraska and I’d say, ‘Who are you writing to?’ And she’d say, ‘My students.’ So, I do the same thing.”

Monahan credits her faith and the people who surround her for any success she or the food bank has achieved. She said her husband of 57 years, Kirby, does just as much “behind-the-scenes” work for the food bank as she does.

A little more than 40 years ago, she and her husband left Nebraska and pushed west in search of a new home. They met a cousin of hers in Spokane and became enchanted by the “big city with a small-town feel.” After a brief stint as a secretary for a company called ISC, which focused on creating software for banks, Monahan became a parent helper when her son entered kindergarten. Later, she went back to school to become a paraeducator and joined the school district. Then she started the Mead Food Bank, and the rest is history.

When asking people who know her to describe her character, many of the answers were the same: devoted, curious, steady, kind, compassionate. But the volunteers who nominated her as a difference maker, Larry and Mary Jaquish, may have defined her best:

“I wouldn’t use three words,” Larry Jaquish said. “I would just go, ‘Saint Bette.’ ”