Marina Sims loves to make pork chops, enchiladas, quesadillas or a chuck roast at her mobile home in Livermore, and enjoys an order of Wendy’s chili when she’s feeling social and wants to go out with her friends.
“It’s a treat because you’re going to have french fries,” Sims said. But, she said “I like Mexican food more than anything.”
Lately though, cooking at home is getting tougher for Sims, 75, who is handicapped and uses a wheelchair to get around. Thankfully, she is able to rely on Spectrum Community Services’s Meals On Wheels program for homebound seniors, which provides her with hot and nourishing food each week.
She has depended on Spectrum for the past two years, about the same time her son moved away for work. Rain or shine, Sims waits in anticipation for her favorite delivery driver, Lisa Breton, to arrive so that the two can catch up and chat about their lives, families and anything else that can bring a smile to their faces.
“Spectrum actually saved my life,” Sims said recently. “I could have never made it.”
Breton and other volunteers, who drive the food daily from a hospital kitchen at Stanford’s Valley Memorial Center in Livermore, pack specialized containers into their own vehicles and travel year-round throughout the Tri-Valley area, Mondays through Fridays.
Over the past couple of years, Breton and Sims have formed a friendly relationship. Breton’s parents regularly received Meals on Wheels when they were seniors, and she said she signed up as a volunteer to help pay back the favor.
“People need to eat,” Breton said. “Some people really have nobody … There’s such a need.”
With about 90 volunteers per week, Spectrum serves about 300 people through 18 different routes between Livermore, Pleasanton and some limited parts of Dublin. Breton is in charge of about 20 seniors’ meals several days a week. A fan favorite is the roast turkey with mashed sweet potatoes, she said.
“There’s just some amazing people that we serve,” she said. But Spectrum’s clients often face many challenges of aging at home – something that volunteers often come face-to-face with when they deliver meals. “Some of them are lonely. They want to talk to you.”
Spectrum provides other services to seniors all over Alameda County, including meals for seniors who are still independently mobile, education and exercise classes to help prevent falls, utility bill payment assistance for low-income residents and families, and services to help low-income residents get more cost-effective, energy-saving home upgrades.
In addition to meals, Spectrum helped Sims get a new water heater and clean up her yard. Seeing friendly faces daily from Spectrum also brings companionship, which Sims appreciates because sometimes they bring surprises.
“All my life I’ve given to everybody and volunteered,” Sims said. “The good Lord must have known that sometime in my life I might need something.”
Spectrum regularly accepts donations for seniors’ birthdays and holidays, such as Christmas and Mother’s Day, to distribute to its clients throughout the year. Each year, Sims gets a card on her birthday and Mother’s Day — her two favorite times of year, she said.
Seniors often receive care packages too, especially around the holidays, which can include items such as non-perishable foods, flowers and first-aid kits or other home supplies.
Carrie Oldes, Spectrum’s Meals on Wheels program manager, said around Christmas time, seniors sometimes request things such as vacuums or new mattresses. But throughout the year, Oldes says there’s one thing that keeps Spectrum working with seniors.
“The crux of the program is that one-on-one (time),” said Oldes, who grew up around the Tri-Valley and Livermore.
She started working with Spectrum eight years ago, shortly after her mother died. Oldes said it is special to get to serve her community, and is sometimes reminded of her mother through experiences with her senior clients.
“We always try to say, ‘If it were my mom or my dad, what could they need?’” Oldes said. “I’ll continue to try to give as much as we can.”
