We lost a true life force in community service recently when Joyce (Joy) Trickett succumbed to a brief illness. She was the consummate volunteer, and we would be remiss to allow her to pass through our lives without acknowledging her contributions.

A Great Falls native who stayed in her birthplace all of her 75 years, Joy was born into a home of deep faith and inherited the love of community service and passion for good works from her parents.From those roots, she began a life of caring about the needy, the lonely and the abandoned.

After a long career with the federal government, she put her organization, strategy and management skills to work for the community and the less fortunate. Her beloved Dranesville Church of the Brethren, where she was a deacon and chair of the leadership team, was a springboard to long-time affiliations that include Link Against Hunger; Good Shepherd Alliance where she was a former board chair; and the Great Falls Area Ministries (formerly Great Falls Ecumenical Council). Over the years, she received volunteer awards.

I met Joy when a small group of us was just getting the Great Falls Senior Center off the ground. She understood what the Center could mean to our community and how it could positively affect the social and intellectual lives of our mature residents. My memories and thoughts begin with the working relationship we would share at the Center.

Lip service was not part of Joy’s makeup. She was action personified and knew how to get things done with laser beam focus. I knew her to always keep her eye on the prize and to never seek the spotlight. The work wasn’t about her; it was about the end goal -- meeting the needs.

As one of the Senior Center’s founding members and its first communications officer, I was able to witness it take shape from a seed and evolve into the viable entity it is today. That success is product of many volunteers who have served at all levels, from leadership to committee member. Joy’s leadership and team player traits were evident during those formative and growth periods: respectful of others’ opinions and ideas, straightforward and solid, relentless in pursuit of the goal, creative problem solver, capable of compromise, and totally committed. And she was a unifier who could bring diverse personalities and perspectives closer to a consensus. At her death, she was the Center’s president.

I’m hopeful these memories carry a high degree of objectivity. I believe that those who’ve collaborated with Joy on behalf of organizations she touched will find their own sentiments among these words.

Joy’s gifts to our community are her legacy from a life well lived. Those who knew her can nurture and grow that legacy by celebrating her work. And, by extension, she would want us to celebrate her fellow volunteers for they often are unsung heroes.

While she’s gone now, I take comfort from knowing and working with a human being of such high calibre and big heart.

Linda Fernald

Great Falls