North Bay couple's work to keep seniors fed continues into their own golden years
A Marin County couple is kicking off their 20th year making sure senior citizens don't go hungry, and they have no plans to retire even though they're older than some of the people they serve.
With 79-year-old Ruth Schwartz at the wheel and her 82-year-old husband Curt Kinkead unloading boxes from their delivery van, they operate like a well-oiled machine.
Together, they're making a difference for about 1,000 people a year.
"The joy for me is knowing we're making life easier for an awful lot of people," Kinkead said.
The couple delivers food to low-income senior citizens, people living with disabilities, and others at the Hamlin Hotel in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood.
They added the site to their distribution route last year in honor of a good friend who served the single-room occupancy hotel for years but passed away.
Schwartz says the delivery reminds her why she and Kinkead started serving others nearly two decades ago.
"There's this woman who lived by herself, had no family locally, and she was living on three potatoes a day," Schwartz recalled. "We wanted to make sure people like her got enough food."
We first profiled the pair in 2010 in the early years of their nonprofit Respecting Our Elders. The group picks up surplus food from grocery stores and farmers markets and delivers it to cash-strapped people at Marin County senior citizen apartment complexes, churches, and community centers.
In recent years, they've added weekly "open food days" where people can pick up donations themselves in Bolinas and San Rafael.
The couple says in all, they've given away 100 million dollars worth of groceries.
"We came up with a treatment for a very serious disease that kills thousands of seniors every year. It's called 'financially-induced situational depression,'" Kinkead said. "This program gives instant relief to that condition."
Kinkead is getting a little relief, too. For years, he's volunteered to pick up and drop off donations seven days a week. Only recently did he start getting one day off.
"I decided when I was 80 to slow down a little bit," he chuckled.
For the couple who's been married 31 years, their volunteer service is a labor of love in more ways than one.
"Functioning like that, as a partnership, not just because we're husband and wife, but as a partnership making that kind of contribution, is very, very gratifying," Schwartz said. "Almost makes me cry."
"It's the most gratifying thing I've ever done in my life," Kinkead added.
With no plans to retire, the partners in service and in life say they'll keep the deliveries rolling. Many of the drivers in the all-volunteer program are older adults who are also recipients.
Most of the $25,000 operating expenses are transportation-related. The nonprofit seeks more donations to help pay for the high price of gasoline and delivery van maintenance.
You can find more information at respectingourelders.org.