For the last 19 years, Monaco has volunteered his time for community members in need, collecting food from local grocery stores to donate to Martha's Kitchen. To accomplish this, he wakes up at 4 a.m. and puts in 80 hours a week. The Willow Glen resident and retiree says he works harder now than he did when he had a job.

"I see him less now than I did when he was working," his wife, Ann, jokes.

The Rev. Jim Walsh, who serves as pastor at St. Christopher's Church in Willow Glen, says he admires Monaco's work ethic.

"Joe does everything with a smile," he says. "I have never seen him get angry or say he can't do something. He puts young people to shame."

At 84 years old, all his years of volunteering are paying off. Monaco says he has impressed his doctor with his physical fitness. "My doctor says he can't believe I still weigh 175 pounds," he says, laughing. "I weighed 175 pounds in high school."

An active, 42-year member of St. Christopher's, Monaco says he initiated the Gleaners Program in 1985 because he wanted to give back to the community, so members of the church put him in touch with Martha's Kitchen.

"I started out by borrowing [my wife] Ann's Buick and going to Safeway on W. San Carlos," he says. "I worked seven days a week alone."

As a former financial controller at Safeway in Walnut Creek, Monaco knew that the stores threw out day-old food every morning. He arranged with the W. San Carlos Safeway manager to have the food donated rather than dumped in the trash.

"When you throw things away, you don't know how other people might feel about that," Monaco says. "Someone else might be able to use the things you toss in the garbage."

Wanting to collect more food for the needy, Monaco says he approached other stores in the area to ask them to donate their discarded food. He says no grocery store has ever turned down his request. In fact, according to Ann, some stores wanted to capitalize on Monaco's services.

"Other stores heard about it and contacted Joe directly," she says. "I guess it's better than dumping it and having to pay for the Dumpster."

But Monaco soon found he couldn't collect all the food by himself. By advertising in the church bulletin, he says, he acquired volunteers who wanted to lend a hand. The Gleaners Program blossomed into a 109-person operation that collects 3­4 tons of food a day for Martha's Kitchen.

One of the volunteers who works with Monaco is Tom Bettencourt. He started collecting food with the Gleaners Program five years ago, but this is not the first time he has worked with Monaco. The two worked together 50 years ago at the Tuxedo Canning Plant.

"Joe is a very caring person," Bettencourt says. "He is very involved in doing things for others."

Monaco says that giving to his neighbors is less a chore than an inclination—and his upbringing just might be the reason for his set of values. Growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania, Monaco says, he learned the value of sharing from his mother and father, who owned a farm and a grocery store.

"My uncle always told me that my mother and father could have been multimillionaires, but they were always giving stuff away," he says. "There were so many people in our town who needed help, and my mother and father always gave food to them or told them to come pick it up from the farm. That instilled in my mind the value of good works."

Monaco says his mother in particular was a source of inspiration. "My mother made 20 pies a day and killed 20 chickens," he says. "She would make soup and pasta and feed it to the farmworkers and people in the town who needed it. My mother slaved."

So years ago a seed was planted that sprouted into the philosophy that lead to the Gleaners Program. And working at Safeway was the catalyst.

"I saw all that food that was wasted while I was there," he says. "You could do two things with it: throw it in the garbage or give it to people."

He began donating discarded goods from Safeway to the St. Vincent de Paul Society of Santa Clara County. In addition to collecting food, he was also instrumental in helping the organization initiate the Pope John XXIII Senior Center of San Jose in 1964.

"People like him are out there," says Walsh. "But no one pays any attention to the good ones."

But Monaco's charitable works did not go unnoticed. In 1964, he won the St. Vincent de Paul Society Award for his charitable works with the organization. And the awards didn't stop there. In May 1999, Monaco was awarded the first Nicholas Green Award for his charitable work. He also received the Pontifical Award in November 2001. And at the California State Council Convention in May 2003, the council bestowed upon Monaco the first Volunteer of the Year award for his commitment to helping hungry people.

"Joe is a perfect example of a Good Samaritan," says Walsh, who has served as pastor at St. Christopher's for 15 years. "We need a whole lot more Joes in the world."

But Monaco plays it all down and says he has been fortunate to meet many Good Samaritans.

He remembers one young man who used to receive food from Martha's Kitchen who is now an active member of his church and involved in charitable works. Monaco also recalls the generosity of Martha's Kitchen President Ernie Pacioni, who arranged to have all the leftover food at Gilroy's Garlic Festival donated to a soup kitchen in Los Banos.

There is one person, however, to whom Monaco attributes a large part of his success in organizing the Gleaners Program.

"The person who needs the most credit is my wife, Ann," he says. "I'm never home. She takes all my phone calls and writes everything down for me."

And he also says that he feels blessed to have been able to have an impact on the lives of others.

"It's a privilege to be able to support people who really need something to eat," he says.