Community Stories

Food for Hope program begins impacting seniors

June 10, 2022

Food for Hope volunteer Gina and her daughter deliver five meals to a senior.

 

In its third week of deliveries, Food for Hope is already making a difference in the lives of seniors, beyond the meals themselves.

Heart2Heart Volunteer Coordinator Antonella Salerno saw the impact firsthand when she made her own weekly delivery to a woman in the community. 

“She started crying,” Antonella said. “She was very thankful for the meals.”

Heart2Heart delivered meal packages to 14 seniors in the community in that first week. Steadily, that number has grown. Twenty-one seniors were blessed in week two, and 28 seniors are slated to receive meal packages this week. The number will increase to at least 31 by next week.

“We’ve been encouraged by the way volunteers have stepped up,” Antonella said. “Our goal was to bless 50 seniors with five meals a week in this pilot year, and we’re on our way to meeting that.”

One woman who stepped up is Alexandria Allen. She became a volunteer just three weeks ago, after she saw her friend post Heart2Heart’s request for delivery volunteers on Facebook.

“I never really thought about volunteering,” she explained. “But I saw the post and thought, ‘I can do that. I can definitely do deliveries.’”

In her first few weeks as a Heart2Heart volunteer, Alexandria made two deliveries: to a woman living on her own in North Lauderdale and to a couple in Margate. 

Alexandria said she tends to have a natural rapport with older adults, perhaps given her many interactions with seniors in the past. 

“They seem to love me. I don’t know what it is,” she said. “We just start talking, and they get really comfortable with me.” 

The senior in North Lauderdale was not an instant convert when Alexandria delivered her first batch of five meals.

“She was really standoffish. You could tell she was really nervous about the whole situation,” Alexandria said. 

Alexandria joked about getting a speeding ticket on the way over to make the delivery. That broke the ice.

“She sat me down and explained. I heard her testimony, and that was it: We were crying, and we were laughing,” she said.

Alexandria now checks in with her new friend regularly, just to spend time with her. Older adults are not a difficult puzzle, after all.

“They just want someone who’s generally trying to be nice,” she said. 

Alexandria said she’s also had a positive experience picking up the food from Ofterdahl’s, whose Hand-off Foundation is partnering with Heart2Heart to provide the food. The staff is helpful and fast.

“That’s been amazing, because I try to make the deliveries in a three-hour window while my daughter’s in VPK,” she said. 

The recipients of the food have been grateful as well.

“They’re all smiles and excited to see what they got, because the food is really good,” Alexandria said.

She recently added a third delivery, to a woman living in Margate.

“I didn’t get a chance to talk with her yet,” she said. “But she’s so cute and so nice. I know I’m going to be cool with her, too.”

Heart2Heart still needs volunteers and donors for the Food For Hope program. Volunteers pick up directly from Offerdahl’s and drop off five meals to at least two seniors once a week. For more information, click here.

 

Join the Team!

Becoming a Heart2Heart volunteer means that you are dedicated to serving the aging community. It means you want to connect in a meaningful way to a specific individual or to several people. It means you are committed to a consistent amount of time per month – whether that’s several hours a week or just a few hours per month.

Heart2Heart volunteers must be background checked and trained. Our training can be completed from your home on your computer or device, through the online Volunteer Portal. We run fingerprints in our office in Fort Lauderdale, and you can schedule an appointment with us after you finish the training.

The first step is to create an account on our Volunteer Portal. To get started, click here!

Read more …

Big Ideas and Small Acts of Kindness

Big Ideas and Small Acts of Kindness

We were inspired by the story of Rashaad Green, an inspirational student we met at a college volunteer fair. At 22 years old, he is helping homeless people, including a 64-year-old senior, and he’s started a club that will bring art therapy to seniors. He dreams of one day curing cancer and opening a permanent and temporary housing facility for the homeless.

The Glamorous Stories of a 1940s Broadway Dancer

The Glamorous Stories of a 1940s Broadway Dancer

Lillian Flowers is 98. She lives alone in Fort Lauderdale.

She used to dance on Broadway.

While volunteer Steve Retford is helping her get services she needs, he gets a front row seat to glamorous stories from Broadway, filled with famous theater producers, celebrities (she dated Dean Martin briefly), and traveling through a life of show biz.

We extended his front row seat so you can listen to Lillian’s stories too.

Heart2Heart Welcomes New Staff — in a New Space!

Heart2Heart Welcomes New Staff — in a New Space!

In case you haven’t met them in person yet, we introduced the new additions to our team:

– Rosevel “Rosie” Castro, outreach coordinator
– Peighton Stone, dietician and intern with us from Nova Southeastern University for eight weeks

Some of our team got new roles, too. Check out all the details about that — and our new office!