By LOIS KINDLE
lekindle@aol.com
Joanie Frantz has spent a lifetime helping people in need, and her volunteer work across the South Shore community since moving to Sun City Center 14 years ago has been nonstop — literally.
Her days are spent driving neighbors to appointments, delivering food, checking on shut ins and stepping in wherever a gap needs filling. It’s hard to find a nonprofit group in the area she hasn’t helped.
Currently, she serves as vice president of the Interfaith Social Action Council of Sun City Center and volunteers every Wednesday at its Nearly New Thrift Shop.
Additionally, she’s the Matthew Fund coordinator for the Sun City Center United Methodist Church. Based on the biblical call for Christians to care for their fellow man, the ministry benefits residents in need, the homeless and area school children in a number of ways. Frantz also donates furniture she collects through a personal ministry she founded last year to Inspira Tampa Bay and other nonprofits; is a board member of The Lord’s Lighthouse Ministry, where she serves as a weekly food pantry volunteer and helps write grants; coaches seniors enrolled in U.S.F.’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute; takes residents in need to E.C.H.O. to secure housing and job coaching; and through a variety of resources delivers food to two families she personally sponsors — an elderly couple in Sun City Center and a family of four in Wimauma she discovered on Next Door.
Joanie Frantz, front right, sorts produce with other volunteers on a recent Thursday morning before the start of a weekly Lord’s Lighthouse food distribution in Wimauma. She spends her days driving neighbors to appointments, delivering food, checking on shut ins and stepping in wherever a gap needs filling.
There’s more. Frantz has raised funds for multiple bikes rides for MS, one of which involved 100 miles over three days. She works with fellow members of the SCC
Pickleball Club to collect chickens for the Hispanic community for Thanksgiving, host several community-wide food drives and collect Christmas gifts for local elementary school students recommended by their counselors.
“Joanie is involved in so many things,” said Victoria Sorensen, who recently retired as SCC United Methodist Church director of ministry. “She’s a selfless person who’s laser-focused on the needs of others — not for recognition or accolades. It’s her mission in life. With her, what you see is what you get. She’s absolutely warm, genuine and caring.”
Not a day goes by Frantz isn’t doing something for someone else. Even the pandemic didn’t stop her.
“I am motivated by my faith to reach out and love people for who they are without judgement,” she said. “I try to find resources and connect them to people who need them. I want to help them better their lives.
“At the end of the day, everyone can find something of value to do through volunteering,” she continued. “It can be as simple as giving food to a homeless person, buying a gift card for someone who’s struggling or taking a hot meal to a neighbor who lives alone.”
More about Joanie
Frantz, 76, who grew up in Wixon, Mich., had a successful 25-year career as an account manager with Georgia Pacific. Nominated by a co-worker for her work with patients in the Children’s Hospital in Detroit burn center — and on its AIDS floor, when no one else would — she won the Kyle Petty Award and was invited to ride across the country in the Kyle Petty Charity Ride Across America from Washington State to Camp Victory Junction in Randleman, South Carolina.
The child of two alcoholic parents, Frantz volunteered in the past with The Salvation Army, serving meals during holidays and gave motivational talks to school children on becoming all they can be. She learned early on the importance of being nonjudgmental and moving beyond where or you started in life.
She’s been married to her husband, Dennis, for 50 years. They have a blended family of three adult children, four grandchildren and one great-great grandchild.
Joanie Frantz’s outlook on life is simple: gratitude fuels service and service builds hope. She believes every act of kindness — no matter how small — can steady someone who’s struggling. It’s the reason she keeps showing up, day after day, for anyone who needs a hand.