They called him the Can Man.

At local parks after ballgames, James M. Fisher of South Park dug through the garbage to find aluminum cans for recycling, so he could give the proceeds to the Meals on Wheels program through Grace Lutheran Church.

He also collected food for the program from places like Trax Farms in Finleyville, where Patty Trax, the produce manager for her family's farm, would jokingly kid him about his dumpster diving.

"He would laugh, because he didn't care where he was," she said. "He was never embarrassed to go digging through garbage because he said someone would benefit from it."

Mr. Fisher's can and food collecting endeavor started as an occasional activity around South Park, then grew into an obsession, said Mr. Fisher's son, Rick, of Durham, N.C.

"The more he got involved with it, the bigger it got," Rick Fisher said. Soon, other people in the community were offering him their cans. His car was too small to fit the cans, so he traded it in for a minivan.

Seven days a week, nearly every day of the year, Mr. Fisher drove around picking up cans, cashing them in and then giving the money, plus any food he collected, to Meals on Wheels.

His volunteer work with Meals for Wheels lasted more than a decade, ending only when Mr. Fisher started having health problems about seven years ago. He died Thursday at age 88 from heart complications.

His son attributes his drive to volunteer and donate to Mr. Fisher's humble beginnings.

Born in Hazelwood, Mr. Fisher was the youngest of six and the only son. An injury when he was 3 years old left him blind in one eye. When he was 9, his mother died, and Rick Fisher said his father's family didn't have much money when he was growing up.

"I think he always remembered that and he wanted to help people when they are in whatever situation they got into," he said.

Mr. Fisher was "an industrious kind of guy," his son said. When World War II broke out, he tried to volunteer, but he was rejected since he was half-blind. He kept volunteering, and finally the Army Air Forces took him in as a warrant officer. When the war ended, he began a 40-year career with the Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics, moving up from an instructor position to his retirement as executive vice president.

Mr. Fisher stayed busy in retirement, rarely taking a day off or vacation from collecting cans and food.

"This thing became almost an obsession, and I think he really liked it," Rick Fisher said.

His work with Meals on Wheels earned him a community service Jefferson Award in 1997. That year, according to a profile published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, he collected 408,000 aluminum cans, generated $6,800 for South Park Area Meals on Wheels and spent $2,000 of his own money on gas and repairs for his car.

Each year, he aimed to collect more cans than the year before, his son said.

Other survivors include his wife of 66 years, Orpah Fisherl; a daughter, Diane Dunbar of Bend, Ore.; two grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. today in Windover Hills United Methodist Church, South Park, where Mr. Fisher was a founding member.

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