Washington, D.C., has a serious problem with senior hunger. Fortunately, it also has seniors ready to fight to make sure everyone has food as well as a caring community that feeds souls and bodies. The Capital Area Food Bank’s slogan “Senior Strong” comes to life through its community partner We Are Family and its senior leaders like those at Kelsey Apartments in the Columbia Heights neighborhood.
As a young man, Herb Price came to D.C. to find work not long before the 1968 riots after Dr. Martin Luther King was shot. “D.C. has changed a lot since my early days in the area, but one thing has not: my sense that–as MLK believed–we are on this earth to be of service to others,” Mr. Price recalls. When Mr. Price moved into Kelsey Apartments in Columbia Heights in 2006, he encountered We Are Family, then coordinated onsite by senior leader Thelma Warfield.
The Capital Area Food Bank provides nutritious food to We Are Family through its “Grocery Plus” program, which volunteers assemble into bags. We Are Family not only provides this food for seniors when they are about to run out at the end of the month, but it provides transportation for shopping, voting and attending city council hearings, among many other services.
“I was so moved by the work We Are Family did with the folks in my building that I wanted to join in with the monthly grocery delivery,” Mr. Price says. When Ms. Warfield passed away in 2009, Mr. Price stepped up to fill her role as the coordinator for the delivery to more than 100 low-income Kelsey residents.
Through his service, Mr. Price has befriended many of his neighbors. “I am now someone that many of them turn to when they need help — and this is what We Are Family is all about–looking after one another.
I could see the pride that folks feel, to be pitching in and helping out, and I feel it myself. For We Are Family, seniors still have so much to give, despite our challenges. Sometimes being able to give is even more important than receiving … It makes you feel alive!”
Through folks like Mr. Price and his coworkers Fredrick McComb, Elizabeth Stockton, Johnny Williams, Ron Grey, Ben Parren, Sheila McIntire and George Golphin, the idea of “senior strong” comes alive.
“This isn’t rocket science,”Mr. Price says — with a mischievous smile flitting across his face. “It is just how people should live, taking care of one another, being our brother’s keeper. I’m not that special. Anyone can do it! So why don’t we?”
(Written by Mark Andersen, Co-Director of We Are Family. To get more info on We Are Family or to join in its work, please visit wearefamilydc.org, or contact Mark at marka@wearefamilydc.org or 202-487-8698.)