Teresa Bailey Prout

“It pleases me no end.”

Jim Furman says that a lot. And if you talk to him for a while, you’ll discover that what pleases him often makes life better for the people around him.

Furman, 78, has a habit of seeing a need, coming up with a plan to do something about it, and then finding a way to help even more.

There’s his love of music. He learned the clarinet in the eighth grade, added bass sax in high school and played bass sax and alto clarinet at the University of South Carolina. He didn’t do anything with his music for a while after that.

But then he started playing contrabass clarinet with the Greensboro Concert Band. And after going to Candle Tea at First Moravian here, he gave the Moravian Band a try. He’s been playing with them for more than 20 years.

He branched out to a Moravian group that performs traditional music in costume at Old Salem. “To do that, I had to play an instrument that didn’t have a reed,” he says. “The easiest thing to do was to play a baritone horn, sort of like a mini tuba.” So, he learned that, too.

“I have a bad habit of going to hear these bands and saying to the director, ‘You know, I think I can play your music.’”

And because he knows a lot of instruments – by now almost too many to list – he started helping the bands at some of his grandchildren’s grammar schools.

But most significantly, there’s Picov Andropov — not the Magliozzi brothers’ chauffeur on “Car Talk,” but the project Furman came up with for the Ancient Order of Hibernians, an Irish Catholic fraternal organization.

Most members are retired, he says, and they looked at doing various projects.

That includes going to Room at the Inn, a faith-based program that provides housing and support for pregnant single women and single mothers with children. They would occasionally haul furniture to the homes of mothers leaving the facility. But the work was sporadic. He wanted to do more.

When he found out the Room at the Inn custodian had to go out every week to pick up food donated for residents, he had his answer.

The project started with three men picking up food at two places. Two years later, there are 19 volunteers. Ten are from the Hibernians, Furman says. Six are from Knights of Columbus at St. Pius X, and three are independent.

Furman now does the coordinating and fills in when a shift is open.

They go to 27 pickup sites, everywhere from Food Lion to Papa John’s Pizza.

They deliver about three-quarters of the food to Room at the Inn, but now they also drop off at Sanctuary House, a nonprofit that helps adults with major mental illness.

“If I can bring a trunkful from Starbucks or Kentucky Fried, I know I’m putting a dent in their food budget,” he says. And it keeps good food out of the landfill.

Also, he says, his work with Room at the Inn is “a right-to-life thing that men can do.”

Furman was a Latin teacher for many years, but he also spent time working for the Boy Scouts of America. It was good training for his current role.

Activities like organizing a jubilee showed him that “I really did like setting things up and making them go.

“I enjoyed getting this group together and thinking of a project that can work and making it happen.

“It really pleases me no end.”

Furman has been married to wife Betsy for 56 years, and they have four children: Tracy Furman, Jimmy Furman, Angie Murray and Alli Strafaci.

He mentions his 16 grandchildren by name — Bobby, Simone, Theo, Will, Sam, Brendan, Julia, Sadie, Andrew, Everett, Giuseppe, Giovanni, Salvatore, Corabella, Vincenzo and Ferruccio.

And, he says, all four families live nearby. “It’s wonderful watching them grow up. it’s been really good for us.”

Tracy Furman calls her dad an unsung hero.

“He has decades of commitment to serving those in need,” she says. “He seeks no recognition, and that is what makes him more outstanding than anyone else I know.”