SPIRITUALIZED

Fort Pierce’s Jeff Shultz retired as a successful businessman but now devotes his time to serving the less privileged. GREG RODGERS
Fort Pierce’s Jeff Shultz retired as a successful businessman but now devotes his time to serving the less privileged. GREG RODGERS

Businessman is devoting his retirement to St. Francis

BY ELLEN GILLETTE

Shultz began helping with St. Lucie Catholic Church’s soup kitchen in 2018; post-COVID, the food giveaway is curbside.
Shultz began helping with St. Lucie Catholic Church’s soup kitchen in 2018; post-COVID, the food giveaway is curbside. GREG RODGERS

In the 13th century, St. Francis of Assisi founded a religious order devoted to acts of charity and service. More than 800 years later, a Treasure Coast retiree follows in his footsteps as a Secular Franciscan brother. “It’s not a group or organization,” Jeff Shultz explained. “It’s a lifestyle, a commitment to try to serve God.”

Shultz was always a doer, a worker. Getting special permission from the school board, he pumped gas at age 12. He caught and sold fish, dived for lobsters. And when he was old enough to join the family business, he swept floors and cleaned up in Bill Shultz Chevrolet’s body shop. 

“Looking back at our employees and my brothers and looking at my dad — it was in a Franciscan way that he was very kind, fair and compassionate,” Shultz said. “He listened. He’d help people if they needed help.”

Shultz and older brothers, Ronnie and Bill Jr., eventually ran the dealership. “We didn’t have much turnover. It was more of a family atmosphere. It was fun to go to work.” When Ronnie passed away in 2013, the dealership was sold within months. “My heart — our hearts — just weren’t in it after that.”

LIFETIME BONDS

Shultz was born in Atlanta, Georgia. His father owned multiple car dealerships; his mother was a homemaker. “The story goes that Dad looked for a dealership in Florida, where Mom could be in the sun. Wanting to be in the Daytona Beach area, he came two hours south instead — to Fort Pierce. I’m so glad that he did.” 

From first grade through high school, Shultz attended seven different schools. “You had to be on your game. You could hide from everybody or try to be part of them.”

His closest friends from John Carroll Catholic High School and other local schools remain in contact, getting together to celebrate birthdays or during life challenges. At a recent lunch, they discussed avoiding the various cliques at school. 

“We were the negotiators, the mediators,” Shultz said. “Helping between the jocks and the honor roll students, that kind of stuff. It made me feel good because it told me I was still doing things from what I had experienced in life, still being true to who I am.” 

Fellow John Carroll alum Pat Murphy remembers Shultz as being incredibly focused. “Jeff was always the life of the party, but he also had this huge heart.” 

A 1977 graduate, Shultz won the first ever JCHS Distinguished Alumni Award in 2005, chosen from more than 4,000 former students, for his generosity, support and dedication to the school. 

Preferring math to literature and excelling on the track team, Shultz attended Valdosta State College to study business management. When someone suggested he major in physical education and become a trainer instead, he called his dad for advice. “He said, ‘Oh, hell no.’”

RENEE SHULTZ Shultz’s trip to Italy wasn’t just a vacation to see beautiful architecture and art — it was spiritually transformative.
Shultz’s trip to Italy wasn’t just a vacation to see beautiful architecture and art — it was spiritually transformative. RENEE SHULTZ

LIFE MOVES FORWARD

Returning to Fort Pierce, Shultz visited a friend who was a disc jockey at a North Hutchinson Island lounge. Shultz, having DJed himself, took over to give his friend a break. Just before he left, he put on a slow Barry White tune. A young woman tapped him on the shoulder as he crossed the dance floor. 

“Are you Jeff Shultz?” she asked.

Renee Hawkins lived in Vero Beach. Though they had never met, they’d heard of one another through a mutual friend. Shultz was in love by the end of the song. “I told my friends I was going to marry her.” In a few short years, the newlyweds settled in Fort Pierce. Their daughter, Morgan, graduated from Shultz’s alma mater 25 years later.

Shultz was raised Methodist. “We went to church, Sunday school, summer Bible camp. It was always in front of us.”

His paternal grandfather was particularly inspiring. “He always had a smile on his face,” Shultz said. “He never talked about religion but if you asked a question, he’d answer it. If he didn’t know, he always had a pamphlet or the Bible by his La-Z-Boy to look it up.”

Shultz once asked about his grandfather’s constant reading. “Pop goes, ‘Son, I’m studying for my final exam. I want to make sure I get into heaven.’ That stuck with me. When he passed away, it hit me, like going into a room with one candle and you blow it out. Your light’s gone. That’s how I felt. My shining light to God was burnt out.” 

Shultz had remained a Protestant while attending John Carroll. His wife, raised Catholic, had never been baptized. Only when their daughter was being confirmed did they consider converting. “Looking into Catholicism can be difficult,” Shultz said. “There are a lot of moving parts.” In time, the family was baptized together at St. Anastasia Catholic Church. “It re-ignited my faith.”

He occasionally visited St. Lucie Catholic Church in Port St. Lucie, served by the Rev. Mark Szanyi, a former president at John Carroll. Eventually the family moved their membership, but it took a trip to Italy to change … well, everything.

SEARCHING

Shultz continues to study and be mentored by others
Shultz continues to study and be mentored by others, including the Rev. Paul Gabriel, a parochial vicar at St. Lucie Catholic Church. GREG RODGERS

Retired and focused on being a good husband, father, friend and parish member, Shultz yearned for more. He planned a trip to Italy, anticipating “a little bit more soul searching. I thought I’d have a spiritual ‘moment.’ When it didn’t happen, I wasn’t disappointed, though. I was still searching.”

A few days before returning home, Shultz and a priest visited St. Anthony’s Basilica in Padua. “Father John said, ‘Let’s put our hands on the tomb and pray.’ As soon as I closed my eyes, everything got bright.” Shultz had a vision, looking down from a cross onto a golden road that led to God. He also sensed a command: Go back and follow St. Francis. “I was in tears.”

The following Sunday, before Mass began, an announcement was made. St. Lucie Catholic was starting a fraternity, the Secular Franciscan Order, bringing the gospel to life wherever members lived and worked.

“I’d just come off a ball of fire in Italy and this kept it going,” Shultz said. “I didn’t know it would take three and a half years to be consecrated. I read more books during that time than I had in my whole lifetime. Sixty or 70 people started, but only 11 of us went through the whole thing.”

When Shultz was officially professed as a Secular Franciscan, he had a second spiritual experience. “I was looking at a big glow, at the cross. I asked for the faith to understand, and the Holy Spirit said, ‘Now do as I say.’”

Today, Shultz heads St. Lucie’s bread ministry, at church by 4:30 a.m., six days a week, coordinating volunteers who pick up and deliver donations of bread and pastries. On Thursdays, he helps with the church’s curbside “soup kitchen,” providing box lunches, groceries and other food to hundreds of people in need who arrive by bus or car, on foot, on bikes or in wheelchairs. 

Shultz provides a listening ear, too, writing down prayer requests in a notebook. “Need can happen to anyone,” he said. “Even if contact is 30 seconds, we try to make it 30 seconds that they’ll want to come back for.”

Content with his ministry, Shultz is also open to change. “Father Curt Kreml, who recently passed, would say, ‘Do what you can, not what you can’t.’ I’m not the smartest book in the library, but I’ve got some information that I love sharing.”


While visiting Italy, Jeff and Renee Shultz were able to go to the Vatican, a holy city for those of the Roman Catholic faith.
While visiting Italy, Jeff and Renee Shultz were able to go to the Vatican, a holy city for those of the Roman Catholic faith. DAVE WALLINE

JEFFERY SHULTZ

Age: 65

Lives in: south St. Lucie County

Occupation: “Servant of the Lord.” Retired from Bill Shultz Chevrolet in 2013.

Family: Wife, Renee; daughter, Morgan; dog, Chevy

Education: John Carroll High School Class of ‘77; Valdosta State College

Hobbies: “Making sure everybody’s happy. I like fishing. I like traveling. Being with family.”

Who inspires me: “St. Francis. Everybody thinks of him as the guy with the bird feeders and all that kind of stuff. That’s just one percent of who he was.”

Something most people don’t know about me: “Most people [I see in ministry] don’t know that I had a very successful family business. They don’t know that; they don’t see that. They think I’m just one of them. That’s the part that’s really good.”

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