Elk Grove group delivers food to the elderly – and to their furry friends

For 98-year-old Thelma Creekmore, transitioning from a person giving help to one receiving it didn’t come naturally.

Creekmore, a former city bus driver, was still driving from her home to the Elk Grove Food Bank on a regular basis to make donations well after her retirement. On one of these days, however, she fell outside of the food bank’s office on Dino Drive.

“The wind was strong,” Creekmore said while recalling the day.

It was then that food bank employees, including executive director Marie Jachino, told Creekmore that they’d like to sign her up to receive door-to-door food deliveries.

Now, once a month in Creekmore’s case, a volunteer from the food bank stops by her home to deliver fresh groceries and spend time talking before moving on to the next delivery.

Along with the food, blankets, flowers or other gifts are included. It’s a personal touch that means the world to those on the receiving end.

Fiercely independent, tears came to Creekmore’s eyes and her voice softened as she spoke about her experience.

“The food bank has done wonders for me. I’ve enjoyed every minute of them,” Creekmore said. “My last birthday, I had two cards from the food bank. And everyone had signed it. I just treasure this stuff.”

Creekmore benefits from one of the food bank’s seven mobile distribution programs that include deliveries to people’s homes and to low-income senior housing complexes.

The food bank’s request to Book of Dreams is for $5,000 to acquire nutritional supplements and specialty foods, such as low-sodium products, for the 1,500 seniors served each month by those programs.

The food bank currently operates out of a combined warehouse and office — space the organization has outgrown - to serve more than 6,000 individuals monthly, including the 1,500 seniors, according to its 2018-19 annual report.

Jachino, who has a background in geriatric social work, started with a “Senior Brownbag Program” in 2006 in which people came to the food bank to pick up food. The mobile deliveries started soon after that and expanded when a group of women who were HIV/AIDS positive came to Jachino and asked if there was anything the organization could do for them as well.

That led to creation of “The Wellness Bag,” a delivery service provided for the “medically fragile,” Jachino said.

Ava Gardner was one of the women who approached Jachino, and still is enrolled in the program as she approaches becoming a senior citizen herself despite doctor prognostications that she wouldn’t be alive today.

“I was supposed to die before 50, and I’m 59,” Gardner said. “I’m taking it one day at a time, and I’m gonna make it.”

The support Gardner has from the Elk Grove Food Bank means a lot to her, as she doesn’t make enough money to pay for all the groceries she would need without the deliveries.

“To me, they’ve gone above and beyond,” Gardner said. “I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

Thirteen years later, the program has grown to the current seven mobile distribution operations, all based on need. Six of these sites are in Elk Grove, and one is in South Sacramento. The delivery programs are funded by Kaiser Permanente, the city of Elk Grove and other donors.

A big focus of the program is to give those signed up choices in what groceries they receive. For the Thanksgiving holiday, beneficiaries were called in advance and asked if they wanted a turkey or a chicken.

Elk Grove Food Bank also offers toiletries and other essentials, as well as a pet pantry with dog and cat food.

“That’s absolutely critical for our homeless population and seniors, because sometimes their furry friends are all they have,” Jachino said.

She said the need for the programs is on the rise.

“There’s not a lot of low-rent housing out here, so (getting food inexpensively) is critical,” Jachino said. “Many of them are living on their Social Security, $1,200 or less a month.”

The request

Needed: Funds to acquire nutritional supplements and specialty foods, such as low sodium products, for the 1,500 seniors served each month by the food bank.

Cost: $5,000