If longevity and dependability are the stuff of an effective volunteer, then James Sifford certainly has the right stuff.

This fall, he'll have completed his 22nd year of service to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina. The work which Sifford, 85, has done most Tuesday afternoons in retirement involves critical recordkeeping tasks in distribution. The food bank distributes food to 400 partner-agency programs.

This past April, Gov. Bev Perdue recognized Sifford as one of the state's top volunteers, awarding him a Governor's Medallion in a ceremony coordinated by the N.C. Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service.

"It's an honor to have won it," Sifford said recently. He added that he enjoys volunteering at the food bank.

"I feel like it's a group thing where everybody's on the same page," he said. "Everybody's working for the same goal. Most people feel it's a real needed thing."

Clyde Fitzgerald, the executive director of the food bank, said his organization has been blessed and privileged to have Sifford as a volunteer.

Sifford "knows the roles that he has to follow and the job he does for us in the distribution area," Fitzgerald said. "We count on that. I don't know what we'd do without Jim."

Fitzgerald said Sifford's role "is to take several days' worth of paperwork and properly input it to the computer," so that partner agencies know "how many pounds of food they've got and how much money they've saved by getting it here." The agencies then supply this information to funders.

So far in 2012, Fitzgerald said, the food bank saved its partner agencies "over $35 million in food-acquisition costs because they got it from us."

"The way we communicate that to them is on each order and on each shopping trip," Fitzgerald said. "Jim is critical to our ability to do that."

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Volunteer, 85, awarded Governor's Medallion