He kept food-bank shelves well-stocked

HE WAS A childless widower with a lot of mouths to feed.

It was a role Kirkland's Clayton Taub, an unassuming man with an intolerance for waste and a passion for helping others, took seriously.

At 87, Taub was tall, slightly built and partial to cowboy boots and baseball caps.

He was quick to smile, equally quick to pitch in to help.

Each day, he made the rounds of Kirkland-area grocery stores and other businesses, picking up day-old food and items that otherwise would have been discarded.

He took his findings to the food bank run by Hopelink and to the Kirkland Boys & Girls Club. Some went to the Maltby food bank. With the help of a small corps of friends, he saw that food Hopelink didn't use went on to other organizations or individuals.

Friends say Taub didn't think people in need should have to prove they were needy. He figured that if you walked up and asked for help, that was proof enough. That's why he also mounted his own personal effort.

"We are small, but mighty," says Betty Kelly, one of the volunteers who helped with Taub's informal food bank. The group operated out of wherever it could find space. For a time, it was in one of the volunteer's homes in the Juanita area, where Taub shared a house with his best friend, Al Aurilio.

Taub and his wife, Paula, and Aurilio and his wife, Louise, were neighbors. When Taub's wife died, he sold his home and moved to Wisconsin. When Aurilio, also a widower, broke his hip, he asked Taub if he would move in and help while he recovered. Taub did -- and never left.

Aurilio says Taub was "a special guy, just out of this world. I can't say enough about him. He was generous. Maybe too generous. He used his money for other people. If he knew someone needed something, he'd pay for it."

Jessica Ivey, director of the Kirkland food bank, says Taub's involvement with the community food bank goes back about 20 years.

Taub's mother died when he was 3, and the Depression took its toll. The family lost their home. "We knew what it was like to be hungry. So now I'm determined that somebody else doesn't have to go through that," he said in March on a segment of the Kirkland television station's "Star Citizens."

And his reward was a simple one: "Just knowing you're doing something to help people is such a good feeling," he said. "People are so grateful."

Stephanie Pitman, who met Taub and his wife while working at a grocery store in Kirkland, developed a relationship with the couple; After Paula died, she and Taub stayed in touch.

"He was at my wedding," she says. "He was more like a dad to me than my real dad was. He spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with us.

"We'd talk about a vacation. He'd tell me, 'I can't do that. I need to pick up the food.' He was just a wonderful, amazing man."

Taub was a weekly fixture at St. John's Episcopal Church in Kirkland. After the service, he'd rush out to do his food runs.

"He was a sweetheart. He would do whatever needed doing," said Page Eney, the church bookkeeper.

That included playing chauffeur to those who needed transportation, including the sick son of a Hopelink client who needed transportation to medical appointments.

Wednesday afternoon, Taub was scheduled to drive a woman battling cancer to her chemo appointment. He never made it.

That morning, as he left the Totem Lake QFC store after a scheduled food-bank pickup, Taub suffered a fatal brain aneurysm and his car collided with another. As word of his death spread through the community, Taub was remembered as humble, generous, dedicated -- and kind beyond belief.

Ginger Merrill, one of the volunteers who worked with him, said: "A bunch of talking was nonsense to him. He was 'roll-up-your-sleeves-and go.' "

And he never sought accolades or public attention.

"We invited him to our volunteer recognition event every year," Ivey said. "He never came."

A celebration of Taub's life is tentatively planned at St. John's in September. The date and time will be announced later.