Volunteers really make Good Cheer a special place. They give energy and time out of their daily lives to help our community wide efforts on South Whidbey Island.  I wanted to spend some time recognizing the work of these special people; they are at the core of what we do at Good Cheer.

Ula Lewis is one of those special people.

Don’t let Ula see you throw away a coupon. She knows their real value.

Lewis is a special kind of volunteer for the Good Cheer Food Bank. She’s a coupon-clipper, organizer and frugal shopper who saves us hundreds of dollars a month by using coupons for items purchased at chain stores offering double and triple coupon redemptions.

As the mother of 11 children, Lewis had to watch her food budget at home and did so, partly by clipping coupons.

This past July, she decided to put her talent to work for Good Cheer by organizing coupons that Good Cheer had on hand and then adding to them. With the help of a small circle of friends, the coupon collection began to grow; so much so that Lewis invested in large plastic bins to keep all the coupons well filed.

Just about weekly, Ula and her friend Iola Helland go shopping on the mainland, mostly at the Albertsons and Fred Meyer stores.

“I tell the stores that I am shopping for the Good Cheer Food Bank, and that I am using coupons and will be buying sale items. Sometimes I phone ahead and they can bring in more of an item and hold it back for me.”

She always tries to shop more than one location of each store so that she doesn’t wipe any one store out of any products.

A recent example of her work are the boxes of brand name cereal on the shelves at the Food Bank. “They were marked $4.89 a box; but I watched the ads and found them on sale for $1.88 a box. I had a dollar off coupon for each box. So I got that cereal at 88 cents a box.” Another find was Kraft salad dressing at 37 cents a bottle, once the coupon was applied.

Lewis also will get certificates, from some stores, for $25 off her next purchases because of the quantity of groceries she buys, then uses them on her next shopping trip for Good Cheer.

She can spend up to 30 hours a week at her coupon and shopping work for Good Cheer; on top of volunteering at the Food Bank. This is a woman with a great heart!

“I appreciate Ula’s willingness to devote time not only for the coupon clipping and shopping, but also here at the Food Bank” says Food Bank Manager Damien Cortez. “She comes in regularly just to see if we need help and will give up her entire day just because she sees the need. I honestly don’t know what we would have done without her this week!”

We all love what Ula is doing for us at the food bank. It is something many in the community had encouraged us to do. It was so nice when someone said I will do it for you!

Lewis had a time in her life when she was on food stamps, so she understands the value of help. “I learned then that you can use coupons with food stamps. I figured if someone was going to give me money for food, I would spend it in the most economical way that I could.”

Helping others now is a way of paying back.

Anyone wanting to give coupons to Lewis for her project can bring them to Good Cheer.  Ulla will make good use of them:)