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(silence)
- [Seth] If I were to say senior citizens and old people,
what's the first thing that comes to your mind?
- Bad driving.
- [Seth] Yeah? - Yeah.
- Well, I don't know.
I guess I would think of, you know, like old folks' homes,
like residences and healthcare, things like that.
- Social security, Medicare,
retirement plans.
- My mother.
- Grandparents, grandmas.
They get cheaper bus tickets.
- I mean, I have nothing against old people
at all, you know?
The only thing about old people is just, I mean,
let's be honest, they're old people.
- The problem here with the seniors is they're lost
and they're forgotten, because everybody's so busy
with their life that they forget
that the seniors have a big need.
- People have ostracized our seniors, and it's sad,
because that's our greatest source of wisdom.
- Generally people have an idea that, you know,
that because you get older, you don't have value.
- [Seth] So if I told you that every day in America,
six million seniors go hungry,
what would you say to that?
- You know, it's heartbreaking,
and I really didn't know that.
- I'd say that's believable.
And it's a shame.
- I guess I'm not educated enough.
I thought they would have a lot more money
than some of the younger population.
- You know what, that's by choice, my man.
I have to say that's by choice.
- That would make me think about how we've moved away
from family units, taking care of elderly and moved
towards kind of assigning them their own separate lives.
- It's shameless in a country such as America,
because I think there's enough for everyone here.
- The problem of senior hunger in America is real.
It's a real problem, it's a terrible problem.
- They're the people who fought our wars.
They're the people who have built our towns,
educated our children, and protected our communities.
They should not be hungry.
They should not be the new face of hunger in America.
- It's not just about poverty.
It's not just about lack of funds.
To a lot of people, it's about the lack
of ability to help themselves.
- I live in Los Angeles.
- [Seth] That's me, Seth Hancock.
I'm a photographer in Los Angeles.
And, as of right now,
I'm a full-fledged documentary filmmaker.
Well, not really.
You see, most people who work on documentaries
do so because it's a passion project,
or something that they've pursued for a lifetime.
But in my case, I was actually asked to make a documentary.
And not just any documentary, mind you.
A documentary featuring the most un-sexy subject
in all of America, senior citizens and hunger.
Initially, I was going to turn the project down,
because I've never gone hungry a day in my life.
I really couldn't bring anything to the table,
and rarely do I think about getting old.
But for all the reasons I wanted to say no to this project
are the exact reasons I wanted to say yes.
Because I needed to see how prevalent this is in America,
how this is gonna affect your life or my life down the road.
And for those reasons alone, I wanted to make this film.
This is my story.
Starting in Los Angeles and not knowing a damn thing
about senior citizens and hunger was a bit of a challenge,
so I did what anybody else would do,
and I contacted the Meals on Wheels program.
Unbeknownst to me, the woman who founded it,
Sister Alice Marie Quinn, happens to be kind of
a celebrity amongst celebrities here in Los Angeles.
And fortunately enough, she agreed to meet with me,
and to talk with me about this project.
She showed me around the facility,
and let me know what it took to feed thousands
upon thousands of people on a daily basis.
Needless to say, I was blown away.
But, by the end of our conversation,
I felt so much better about knowing where to begin.
And then she said, I think there's someone you should meet.
You need to go talk with Carla.
And that's exactly what I did.
- My name is Carla Laemmle.
I'm 101.
I was a professional dancer.
Carl Laemmle was my uncle.
He founded Universal Studios.
We lived right on the lot.
It was wonderful, I loved it.
I was brought up and trained as a dancer,
but somehow, acting came kind of natural to me.
I liked it.
I liked acting.
The first movie I was in was Phantom of the Opera.
I believe I was 14 years old.
(dramatic music)
- [Seth] Do you remember your line from Dracula?
- I hope so.
(laughs)
Among the rugged peaks that frown down upon the Borgo Pass
are found crumbling castles of a bygone age.
(laughs)
It was about 30 years ago that I became very ill,
and they diagnosed it as TB.
And I was unable to go out and do anything on my own.
And I have to have meals delivered some way.
And I learned about this company that brought food
to the house, and that was how it all started
that I was able to live at home.
For me, it's the only way I wanna live.
- [Seth] How important is that meal
that gets delivered to you everyday?
- It's very, very important.
I couldn't do without it.
Absolutely.
It's my life.
"Dear Ms. Laemmle, hello.
"My name is Adam Barnette and I'm a big fan
"and admirer of yours.
"You're my favorite actress.
"I would love if you would please sign
"the two enclosed photos for me, and for my brother CJ.
"We'd appreciate it and always treasure it.
"Bye."
- One of the challenges about aging is, in fact,
making sure that you are properly nourished
when you do get older, so that we can remain healthy,
we can remain in our own homes.
I don't know anybody in my lifetime who's ever said,
"I can't wait to get old so I can be in a nursing home."
- We're concerned about the older person's safety,
and their level of care.
But sometimes we forget about their quality of life.
And by placing them in an assisted living facility,
or looking at some type of nursing care,
we're restricting their ability, their autonomy.
- [Seth] Where do you think you would be physically,
if you didn't have a meal delivered to you everyday?
- Well, I certainly wouldn't be at home.
I would be in some institution
or a hospital of some kind,
where I wouldn't be living my own life.
It makes life something
that I can look forward to every day.
It gives meaning to my life.
I feel that life has still a lot to offer me.
- [Seth] Meeting Carla was a great experience,
but I knew if I was gonna give any legitimacy
to this documentary, it meant that I had to get out of LA.
In doing my research, I learned about this guy
who runs a food bank and delivers meals during the day,
but at night is a headbanging, heavy metal drummer.
I mean, this could not be any more of a departure
from Sister Alice Marie Quinn
than if I had scripted it myself.
So I knew I had to get up to Marin County,
because this could be interesting.
(heavy metal music)
Do you think it's important for people to be able to stay
in their homes, versus, say, going to like a nursing home?
- I think so.
Some people, their entire existence is what went on inside
that household, as their families grew up and grew out.
Some of the people we serve have been in their houses
since they first got married.
They still have the markings of the doorframes
where their kids were six and seven years old,
and then 14 years old, and then you see some
of their grandkids listed there as well.
It's a measurement of success for their own life
that they get to stay there,
because this is what they worked for their entire life,
that's what they paid for their entire life.
And don't tell them that they don't belong in their own homes.
- There have been a number of studies that have looked
at older adults that have moved
into assisted living facilities,
senior nursing homes, and once the move is made
and they move out of their own home, and they are now
kind of separated from their community,
from their neighborhood, from their neighbors,
from the familiarity of their surroundings,
their health usually declines very rapidly, very quickly.
- If we look at the aging population, Marin County
right now, we're over 20% that are 60 years or older.
That number is gonna continue to rise,
and it's not going down anytime soon.
People are living longer.
Now people are living to be 95.
We have people that are 100 years old that we're serving.
Marin County, it's very affluent,
and it's known for its wealth.
And I was coming to an area where people were about
to lose their home-delivered meals services,
which meant that these same people that lived
in this affluent area would start going hungry.
It had nothing to do with the person that lived
in the three million dollar home compared to the person
that lived in Section 8 housing.
It had to do with the fact that this person
can't walk up and down stairs to get their own mail.
They don't have a driver's license.
How can you expect that person to go to a grocery store
and bring home a sack of groceries?
- Our country has not necessarily looked at the seniors
in a graceful way, but I think we have,
we all hold some kind of responsibility for saying
that senior today is very different
than one 30, 40 years ago in this country.
It really is unbelievable that a country as rich as ours,
that we even have anybody hungry in this country.
(knocking on door)
- [Victor] Mr. Graves. - [Mr. Graves] Hi, how are you?
- [Victor] I'm doing well, how are you doing today? - Well, I'm pretty good.
Do you wanna come in, please? - [Victor] Sure, sure.
How's everything going for you?
- Well, I just got home from the hospital,
so I was over there for a day or two.
The reason I thought someone was knocking at the door,
I had one of the people who delivers food to me,
and he's due here about now.
But he'll knock, because he's due here.
- Everything that I do, as long as I've ever done it,
the people that I work with are very close to me
and very dear to me.
You got some milk that's expiring today, Don.
I'm gonna take it out of here for you.
- What's that?
- [Victor] You've got some milk that's expiring today,
so I'm gonna take it out for you.
- Okay, don't take too much,
because I don't have anything to replace it.
- [Victor] You've got six in there.
I just put two more in there.
So you've got six in there right now.
- Fine, fine, fine.
- [Victor] I'll try to bring us some more.
- I watch that very closely, I must tell you.
- Definitely, from the beginning, from day one,
since I got here, it's been more than just a job.
It's been something that I'm supposed to do.
- Come on in.
Let me let you sit down here, because it's rude for you
to come here and not have any place to sit.
- [Victor] Oh, that's okay.
I just think we're appreciative that you
let us come in here today.
- Why, sure, of course.
- There's a lot of people in America that are hungry.
If we can feed them all, we should.
I believe we can.
- I used to have a memory like you can't believe it.
I'm now 81, and I notice a big difference.
- Being that you're 81, and Meals on Wheels
delivers food to you everyday,
and it's something that helps you keep going.
- Yes, when they told me
that I was going to get Meals on Wheels,
I said, I'll see how that works.
And it's been working.
And when I become short of something,
I tell them about it, and it seems to get done.
- We get our funding through a grant, partial grant,
that comes through the Older Americans Act.
And we base that to be about 63 to 65% of what
our expectant cost is going to be for each meal served.
In there, there's still the gap.
There's still, you know, 35 to 40% that we need
to figure out how to cover, so we ask for a contribution
from all the recipients for each meal we serve.
If they can help us out, great.
It really does mean a lot.
Most of them can't contribute though.
We have fundraisers that we put on.
We try to bring in additional money that way.
We plead for outside donation support.
And we apply for additional grants.
- There are 5,000 Meals on Wheels programs
in the United States.
You can't feed people with no money.
So we have to raise all this money to feed
the six million seniors who are going hungry.
We think of ourselves as the voice for hungry seniors.
They have nobody else to talk for them.
We go to Capital Hill, and we try to get the message across
that there are Americans in this country
who are 60 years of age and older,
who are going hungry, in this, the richest nation on Earth.
- This one program helps them stay alive and independent.
And it costs a heck of a lot less to keep them
in their home with a once a day delivery of food,
than it does to put them into a skilled nursing facility.
And that's the part that kills me.
- [Seth] Thank you very much.
- Okay, all right. - [Victor] Thank you.
Great to see you again.
- And I appreciate everything you've done.
- Thank you.
(bleeping)
Patricia, hi, good afternoon.
It's Victor with Marin Meals on Wheels.
It's about 3:40 right now.
I wanted to give you a call,
let you know I'm trying to deliver your meals,
but there's no answer at the door.
And same thing happened on Tuesday.
Would you please give us a call back,
let us know you're okay?
It's 415-507-4300.
And when you give us a call back, please also let us know
when we can reschedule your meal delivery for.
Thank you, again, it's 415-507-4300.
You know, we'll leave that message.
I train all my drivers to leave a message like that,
or one that's at least similar.
And usually we'll go back later on the day,
on our way back towards the office.
Swing by if we hear from them.
If not, then we'll bring them an extra meal tomorrow
or something like that.
But, every once in a while, the person simply is not around.
About once a month or so, it's not unusual
for us to have to call 9-1-1,
and get somebody to come out for rescue emergency purposes.
It's all not uncommon for us to call sheriff's department,
and ask them to provide a wellness check of their own,
which they'll break down a door to do so,
if they're concerned themselves.
- Several generations ago, we were born, raised,
and we lived in that same community with our parents,
grandparents, and we never moved.
But now, with having fewer children or no children,
and moving away, you know, we're getting a society
that becomes disjointed and alone.
But then whose responsibility is it then
to look after older adults that may be getting hungry,
that may need medical attention,
that may need transportation?
- Right here, actually.
I think it's his ex-wife that called in.
This guy was, I guess eating junk food.
- Yeah. - Yeah?
- Alrighty, thank you.
There's no way I can work now.
You know, I've tried, and I can't walk only so far.
As far as being older and looking back,
there's a lot of things I could've done differently.
But, it is something that you just say,
"Well, it never will happen."
And then it will.
- While we're trying to do the job of feeding people,
while we're trying to get out the door and make sure that
meals are delivered, trying to make sure that these people
are still alive, trying to make sure that they're okay,
we have these other people that come along and say,
"Tell me, what was the temperature of your pork
"that you served last week on Wednesday?"
We can do so much when we don't have to do all this crap,
this binder-full of shit like this.
That's what gets in my way of getting my job done.
And it all just gets compiled into a quarterly report
that's about that thick, based on several different sheets
of information, to which I have one person that comes
in the office, thumbs through it for about 10 minutes,
and goes "Okay."
And then hands it back to me.
You mean to tell me that I just spent countless hours
to put all that crap together, so that you can look
through it in 10 minutes, then just say,
"Okay, it's all there."
I think removing some of the pieces out of the puzzle
will help it streamline the whole system.
Let the money flow more freely towards the people
that are actually providing those services.
Don't have people stand in the way,
take money out of the stream for themselves,
and then come back to me and say,
"Would you please provide me with some more details
about what it is that you do?"
You wanna know what it is that I do?
Come out here and help me serve the meals.
- We ask congressmen, we ask congresswomen,
we ask senators, go deliver a meal.
Go see what it's like.
Not as a photo op, don't do it for a pretty picture.
Go see what it's like.
Go walk into the home of one of your constituents
who is in need.
Go see what it's like.
- And that's just what we did.
We spent our second day with Victor
driving all over Marin County delivering over 65 meals.
And about two hours in, I noticed that a job like this
requires a very special person,
because it just seemed to be the same thing,
over and over and over and over and over...
(intense mechanic music)
So what keeps you from burning out here?
- Same thing that makes me show up to work on time everyday.
If I don't come here, somebody goes hungry.
(soft piano music)
- [Seth] But what happened next proved to be
the biggest turning point of this entire production,
because I met someone, who not only changed my view
on senior hunger, but would become my inspiration
for the remainder of the film.
(laughing)
- No strippers are signed up yet,
but, hey, man, do you wanna be in a movie?
- [Paul] Hell yeah! - Hell yeah, he says.
Come on, let's go talk to Paul.
- Seth, are you gonna take all day with this?
You know it's almost two o'clock.
- [Seth] I know.
So, Paul, you've had Victor coming by
and bringing you food for a while now.
- [Paul] He's a pain in the ass.
- [Seth] How long has he been bringing food to you?
- A long, long time.
- [Seth] Yeah?
- Damn!
Victor does it because he has heart for this job.
I kid around, I do a lot of things now,
but really down deep, he's one of a kind for this job.
I don't BS about this stuff.
His organization means a great deal
to a lot of people, not only for me.
- I don't do this because it's something
that improves my health.
I don't do this because it's glamorous.
I do this because I really feel we need to help each other.
If there's one thing I want people to know,
it's that the challenges I see everyday
will some day catch up with them.
They're not expecting it.
But something is going to affect their lives,
it's gonna change their own existence.
- [Seth] Did you ever think when you were younger
that you would be in this position?
- No.
Thanks.
- [Seth] You seem like you got a great disposition.
(laughs) - Not always.
I'm a pain in the neck sometimes.
Ask Victor, he'll tell you.
I have a disease called Von Recklinghausen's disease.
Plus cancer and plus fibromyositis,
which takes your muscle and makes it into fiber.
I can't stand.
My legs just stick out.
Pain, I'm constantly in.
If it wasn't for Victor and his supply of food,
would put quite a bit of burden on me.
If you look behind you, you'll see Feed the Children.
I'm not a rich man, but every couple of months,
I can send them $10.
It's not a hell of a lot, but it can feed,
what is it, 60 pounds of food to a family.
Everybody deserves to be helped.
Maybe I don't have enough to help every month,
but whenever I can, I don't mind helping them.
I lived a pretty good life, so I have no complaints.
Nothing.
- I don't know how to feel about what I just saw.
I mean, here's a guy who...
(sighs)
Has had all kind of affliction in his life.
And pain, and hurts for everything.
He gives money to Feed the Children.
It makes you think about a lot of things, man,
when you meet a guy like Paul.
We just don't do enough in this country.
- How many people go to a restaurant and blow 12 bucks
on a stupid fucking glass of wine?
And don't even think about--
- I do.
- And don't even think about getting the glass
that's five bucks and sending the seven bucks
to someone else that really needs it
so they can even eat dinner that night.
- I don't.
I mean, prior to making this documentary,
I never thought about anything like that.
I never realized how frivolous
the spending on something like that,
like just a glass of wine or an appetizer.
You get rid of that appetizer, and there's money right there
that you've used to feed somebody.
- Yeah, did you really need it?
No, not as much as some of these other people did.
(hoofbeats)
(country music)
- [Seth] While I was in Marin County, I started thinking,
if this is happening in one of the wealthiest places
in America, what's happening in the poorest?
Because if I'm seeing the same thing in the poorest place
in America as what I just saw in one of the wealthiest,
then we may have a much bigger problem
on our hands than I initially thought.
- My name is Cleda Turner,
and I'm the director of Owsley County Outreach.
The Owsley County Outreach
is basically a food backpack program.
And we feed children on the weekend.
We send easily-prepared meals home in their food backpack,
and then we also do the food bags for the senior citizens,
here in Owsley County that we know that has a need,
and we try to help supply that.
A big population of Owsley is senior citizens,
the majority of it is.
And there is definitely a really need for those people.
- [Seth] As far as feeding them?
- Yeah, feeding them, and other assistance also.
There is a commodity program here in Owsley County
that the Lacefields, Susan and Jerry Lacefield do,
and they give out commodities and stuff to seniors,
but the money only covers 98 seniors.
And then the other seniors are just left.
There's nobody helping them.
So when we were called by the Senior Citizens Center,
if we could pick up some of these people,
that's when we reached out and started.
And that branched out, to finding out there were shut-in's,
who couldn't get out and get extra food.
So that's when we started doing the in-home,
taking and delivering to them,
and just spending time with them.
Well, we brought you some fresh pork chops,
and some green beans, I mean some soup beans,
and some fruit and stuff today.
- Some soup beans.
- And some pork chops, and some fruit, okay?
- No, my baby, it's not cooked.
- Yeah, I thought you might wanna cook them beans.
- [Seth] So what's your name again?
- Frank Couch, C-O-U-C-H.
- [Seth] Yeah.
Frank, you've lived here in Booneville all your life?
Yeah, how'd you lose your hands?
How long ago was that?
- 1985.
- 1985, wow!
And now you're in a position where it's nice to have
somebody like Cleda come by and bring some food for you?
She is a good person.
- Yeah.
- There is a drug problem here in Owsley County,
and it is to do mostly with prescription drugs.
And the parents are addicted.
A lot of these kids also live with grandparents,
because parents are either dead or in jail.
They are living on $674 a month income,
and they're raising these two or three extra grandchildren,
and they're trying to feed them.
And you've heard the expression
"Hanging by the tips of your fingernails?"
- [Seth] Yeah.
- That's what these seniors are doing,
they're hanging by the tips of their fingernails.
- [Seth] Hi there, young lady.
- [Woman] How are you? - [Seth] How are you?
- [Woman] All right, how are you?
- [Seth] Doing well, good to see you.
- [Cleda] I come back to check on you again.
- I'm a little better than I was.
- Oh, good, that makes me feel better.
The most important part of the job is to spend
that little time with the people
and let them know that you care, that you're there,
and that they can sit and talk,
and visit with them for a little bit.
- Is it hard to, with what you've got,
the money that you've got coming in,
to be able to afford food all the time here?
- Yes, it sure is.
Because once you pay your bills, you ain't got nothing.
- [Seth] I would assume, though, you're paying rent?
- I pay rent, I've got a water bill, an electric bill.
Can't afford insurance.
Of course, it'd be a good thing if I could,
but, you know, I can't.
- [Seth] Can you imagine what your life would be like
if it wasn't for the help of the stuff
that you're getting from Cleda,
and the stuff you're getting from Susie?
- I don't want to imagine,
because I know I couldn't make it.
I mean, I'm just plain, you know.
- That's a fact.
- I don't know what people's going to do,
times is getting so hard.
- Of the four grandchildren that you're raising right now,
are their parents around?
- [Woman] Somewhere. - [Seth] Somewhere?
- But I don't know, they belong
to my daughter, so I don't know.
Well, one of them belongs to Jamie.
- So you got three of them here now?
- Now, but she's here too.
- Yeah, but I mean, the three of them right now.
- Yeah. - It's gotta be tough, right?
To raise three additional mouths,
with what you're feeding and what you're making?
- Sure it is.
(rain hitting the ground)
- There's a lot of grandparents
that are raising their grandchildren.
And so there, again, that goes into their limited resources
that they have for food.
So, I mean, I'm sure money is very, very tight,
for many, many families for food.
(knocking on door)
- [Seth] And you've got your grandchildren living with you now?
- I did have five of them.
They just moved out.
- [Seth] Okay, but you still have one.
- Uh-huh.
Well, that's a grandson and a great-grandson.
- [Seth] Oh, you have a grandson?
Is it hard sometimes to feed all the mouths in here?
- It was, it really was.
There was 12 of us here.
And it was, yeah.
We did a lot of cooking, though.
Wasn't much snacks, it was cooking.
- When the kids come to school every day,
they get breakfast and lunch at school, so then
the grandparents would just have to feed them at night.
Obviously then having to feed them three meals a day,
when they're out of school or during bad weather days,
I'm sure, has been very, very hard on these families.
- [Seth] You know, one guy said if I told you
that six million seniors go hungry every day,
one of his responses was,
"Well, you know, I guess that's their choice."
What would your response be to that person who said,
"Well, I guess that's your choice that you didn't eat."
- Go knock on that one door.
You'll see that that person doesn't have a choice.
They're not making a choice between eating and not eating.
They may be making a choice
between eating and paying the rent.
They may be making a choice between eating
and taking their medication.
It's not a choice.
- Before I went blind, I volunteered a lot.
I worked, I volunteered for Susie at the Food Bank
and the senior citizen building.
I helped at the Catholic church.
- Which is those one crackers that we had Saturday?
We could use more services of people bringing food in.
We used to have it with some groups that came
to work on houses and do the other ministries
that they do, and would bring us lots of food items, too.
That's been cut down somewhat.
But we could certainly use more resources to get food,
and help to get the food, too.
It's a big job to go 160 miles round trip,
and pack a trailer and pack a truck,
and, you know, we could certainly use any resource
that would come our way.
There is a problem with people having a lot of pride
here in eastern Kentucky, especially.
And they don't like to come and ask for food.
We try to make it as pleasant
when someone comes to the food bank.
We have a good time.
We joke with people, and we pat them on the back,
and we hug them, and we try to let them know that they are
a special person.
- Thank you, man.
- Pride is something that we do within ourselves,
and sometimes we can't help ourselves, we need help,
and that's what a lot of our senior citizens,
the pride we stump out of them,
because they don't have the funding to buy the food,
buy their medicine, pay their rent,
and pay their utility bills.
So their food is one thing, and they don't reach out
and holler, I'm hungry.
So, that's the pride, and we want them to keep that pride.
So when we take a bag of food to them,
we just talk to them, we don't say, here's your free food.
We don't say stuff like that.
We say, how are you today?
No matter how hard it is on them, they're happy.
They're good people, and they make the best
of what they've got.
And that just makes you wanna do more.
Organizations are just not giving
any more to small programs.
And I'm going to start crying.
Let's stop right there.
- [Seth] It's okay to cry.
(Cleda laughs)
- I guess I really am emotional about this program,
and about what we do.
I just wish more people would.
Just get out here and see it.
It doesn't take a lot of time.
- Well, we just left Booneville,
and been on the road for about an hour now.
It's one of things, I guess it's a little bittersweet.
You see some great things, you see some really sad things.
But the people there, friendliest, nicest,
nonjudgmental people I've ever met in my entire life.
I sincerely hope I make it back sometime.
Once I had confirmation that senior hunger
is not an economic issue but an American one,
it was time to start looking
into the way we treat our seniors.
And there's no better state in this country
more equipped to deal with senior issues
than the Sunshine State.
So it was time to head to Florida.
- I think that's very important for seniors
to have social activities.
- I'm very independent, so.
Let's put it that way.
As long as I can do my art, I can carry my own weight,
I wanna be that way.
- [Woman] These here, everybody gets one, one each.
- [Seth] How important is something like this,
for the seniors to be a part of in coming here?
- Oh, I think it's extremely important,
because of what it allows them to do.
Attention, everyone.
Oh my, we are so happy you all are here today.
It allows them to get out of their homes each day.
They're guaranteed a hot meal.
Socializing, just meeting with other people.
Forming relationships, friendships.
You know, it keeps them from being depressed.
A lot of times when you're sitting home as a senior,
you tend to concentrate too much on your illnesses
and things of that nature.
- The socialization is as important as the nutrition.
Being able to be around people that are like you,
have a common interest, a common bond.
- [Woman] Right, right!
(seniors cheering and laughing)
- [Seth] Very good, Jamie.
- Wait, wait, like this, you open.
- Oh, well, come on now.
(seniors laughing)
- We're talking about quality of life.
(seniors laughing)
- When you realize how many of them are widows or widowers,
and a lot of them live alone, and by that, I mean,
even though a lot of them live with family members,
it's family members who have other lives.
They go to work, kids go to school.
And that person, that senior person, is sitting there alone,
so this is something for them to do and still feel involved.
- There are a lot of community resources, services,
that are available for older adults.
I mean, there's the Meals on Wheels,
and there's nutrition sites, and there's senior centers,
and there's councils on aging, and there's the area agency
on aging that provides a lot of services in communities
for older adults, but a lot of times
it's that older adult that doesn't realize
those services are available.
- All right, are we ready?
- [All] Yeah!
- Some of them just come exercise.
Some come just to play Bingo,
because we have Bingo and we give prizes.
We also have a very active exercise group
across the hall that, you heard of Zumba?
- [Seth] I have heard of Zumba. - Well, we do Zumba now.
- [Seth] Really? - Yes!
- In first place, we have Rosebuds with nine.
(cheering)
Repeating, the repeat champs.
- When we were here earlier, and I saw some of the folks
in your group here, and to see everyone saying hi
to each other, everyone waving at each other, smiling,
even though there was this language barrier,
it seemed that there was this, again, camaraderie of people.
- The friendship, we all are human beings.
And we all come here together, just like a family.
- We seniors need our senior friends.
- We do Meals on Wheels.
We do neighborhood lunch, AKA congregate meals.
We do case management, we do guardianship.
We do home improvement.
We do homemaker services, personal care services.
We've got about 170 employees in the state of Florida,
and the funding, it's backwards.
There's more of a bias on the funding site
for the institutional nursing home side
than there is for the community-based side.
And so what we're trying to do is educate legislators,
you know, on that, to see if we can rebalance some
of the budget, so that, if you put a little bit more
on the prevention side, in terms of, you know,
I'm not even talking about wellness kinds of issues.
We're talking about basic needs, as far as
making sure you have groceries, your house is cleaned,
you know, you're clean, as far as personal care.
You can get to the doctor, you can socialize, those kinds of things.
It makes a huge difference.
And the cost analysis related to that, it's just phenomenal.
I mean, it's 10 times more expensive to put somebody
in a nursing home as it is to put somebody,
you know, to pay for community-based care.
- Of course, government always wanna do something
for the seniors, for the kids, but it's always
missing that element, you know.
And Seniors First was that element
that puts everything together.
(chanting in Spanish)
- This is like a second family,
because we get along together, and we miss each other.
Like if I don't come to for two days a week, what happened?
- It's great to come over here.
I wish more people came to visit them.
And you see them, immediately, that smile from ear to ear,
coming up, and it tells you, you know,
they're needing that attention.
They come here, because they're looking to commingle,
to have some company, to fill that gap that is empty
by families that no longer pays attention to them.
So I think, it only takes us a little bit of time.
We all owe it to them.
Look and see who you can help who's next to you.
- [Seth] Tell me how important this facility
and the lunch program are in terms
of the social interaction that the seniors get here.
- For some of them, it's the only social interaction
that they have, and this is their family,
this is their social network.
That's all they have.
I treat them as though they were my family,
and I think that's what they want, that's what they need.
A lot of them are alone. There's no one else.
It's not only that they appreciate me and like me,
I appreciate them, and I care for them too.
So, that's my main thing.
I come in and I spend time with people that I care about.
And that's important to me.
- How did you find out about a place like
the senior center here in Englewood?
(speaking in Spanish)
If a place like this didn't exist,
what would you be doing right now?
(salsa music)
(speaking in Spanish)
- [Translator] She said she would be gone.
- [Seth] Really?
That's how much this means to you?
Why do we have so much ageism in this country?
Why are people not involved in the lives of seniors?
- Same thing we do to disabled people.
They don't fit the mold, so we put them aside.
And that's terrible.
We don't look at the real nature of human beings,
and it's because of the greed.
It's because of we get so involved in the everyday,
wanting to do more to prosper,
but we forget those who are next to us in a way.
- [Seth] After all this talk about pushing
our seniors to the side,
treating them as second-class citizens,
I wanted to find something that actually celebrated seniors.
And it just so happened that the Florida competition
of the Miss Senior America Pageant
was taking place while we were there.
You're Kim?
- [Kimberly] It's Kimberly Moore.
- Kimberly Moore, you're the reigning Ms. Senior America?
- That's correct.
- And you are absolutely beautiful.
- Oh, thank you, Seth. - [Seth] How old are you?
- I am 61, I'll be 62 in July.
- [Seth] Really?
- Now my mission really is to go out
to senior communities and to speak with people,
men as well as women, about aging.
We can age gracefully with elegance.
(audience applauds)
- My name is David Gilbert.
I'm Vice President of the Miss Florida Pageant
for Miss America.
And I'm here judging
the Miss Florida Senior America Pageant.
I think we have a long way to go,
as far as really appreciating our elderly population,
but I think we are headed in the right direction.
And I think this type of thing really gives some
of these ladies and their husbands and their kids
and their friends a little bit of an extra reason
to get up in the morning and say,
"Listen, I have an awful lot to offer.
"I may be retired, I may be 60, 70, 80, 90,"
like one of them we have in the pageant here,
but they have something to offer
and something that we can all learn from.
So I totally support these.
I'm 100% for them.
(piano music)
- I have three children, five grandchildren,
seven great-grandchildren.
I play the piano.
I play bridge three times, four times a week.
- Is this answer as simple
as staying active and socialization?
- That's it.
- I bet you, if you ask anybody in this room,
in their mind, if they feel 70 or over,
they're gonna say no.
They're gonna say no.
- [Seth] You ladies are a classy bunch.
And it's a pleasure for me to know you.
- [All] Thank you.
(audience applauds)
- [Seth] My last question for you then is,
what do you tell my generation and younger
about their attitudes toward seniors.
How should we look at seniors?
How should we act towards seniors?
What should we think?
- What you have to know is we are a plethora
of experience and information.
Use it, take advantage of it.
We may not seem like we know a lot,
but we do, and that's where your source
of knowledge is gonna come from,
all of us who are in the age of elegance.
- [Seth] You know what, I'm a hugger.
I hope you are too. Do you mind?
- You bet your boots!
Thank you so much!
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm so excited.
- I'm so happy.
- Most of them are waiting for that love,
for that attention, you know?
They feed from that.
And it only takes us a little bit of time.
A little bit of time.
I sit down with some of them,
and I just speak to them for a few seconds,
and to them, that's the world.
And they'll remember you for life,
just because of that little bit of time you spent with them.
And they're so much fun.
And sometimes I come over and say, how you feel?
And some of them will say, "I'm always happy."
Some of them will tell you, well, I have this problem,
or this and that, but after you're done talking to them,
they feel better, and you can see it.
It's almost like they get uplifted.
And that's great, that's great.
Plus, as a human being, as a person,
you leave with such a sense of satisfaction.
So I think that would be great medicine for anybody.
(strong wind blowing)
- Hey, I'm well.
Can I have Hank, please?
Hi, Seth.
- Seth, nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.
- This is a 60,000 square-foot facility, yes, sir.
60,000 square feet.
- That's huge. - Right, it is.
This facility will hold about two million pounds
of food at any one time.
- [Seth] Two million pounds?
Does that food sit around for a while?
- No, it turns every month.
- [Seth] Really?
- Last year, we distributed 24 million pounds of food.
We as a nation threw away 96 billion pounds
of food last year.
- That's a number that I keep hearing over and over again.
I have heard on a conservative estimate, between 50 and 70.
- 50 and 70.
- But I have heard that it's probably more likely
96 billion pounds of food every year.
- If it's between 50 and 70, that would be over 200 pounds
of food for every man, woman, and child
in the United States.
Think about that.
- The thing to remember, I always say this,
that there's enough food in this country
to feed every man, woman, and child.
We just need the courage to do it.
And that's all it takes.
- [Seth] There's enough that gets thrown away
that can feed every man, woman, and child, too.
- That's right.
Yeah, that's right.
We have kind of crazy policies.
We're not thinking ahead, we're not thinking strategically.
(machine humming)
- We are woefully low on cooler and freezer space.
That is our biggest bottleneck right now.
The thing we can't afford to do,
is when somebody calls and says,
"I've got a truckload of frozen chicken, can you take it?"
I don't wanna say no.
- Have you had to say no?
- Oh, absolutely, we have had to say no.
This is where food gets staged to go out,
and this is where loads of food come in.
So we got a truckload, and I don't know who this is from.
Looks like we've got a lot of watermelons.
I see a lot of watermelons.
All this other stuff is designed to go somewhere on Monday.
- We've been frustrated by how congressmen
and senators are not getting it.
That they just don't understand the struggles
of vulnerable people and disadvantaged older people.
That these are just statistics.
These aren't just numbers.
And when you cut a program such as Meals on Wheels
or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,
you are going to be making more people go hungry.
- [Seth] You're 65?
- [Hank] Yeah.
- [Seth] And so, you are officially a senior.
- [Hank] I am.
- And yet you're CEO of the Capital Area Food Bank.
- That's correct.
I was seven months into my retirement.
The board asked if I would step in
and do this on an interim basis.
But by the time I was here for about four months,
working with 70 people who were passionate
about the hunger issue,
seeing the face of hunger every day
and talking to people who were receiving this food,
you get so invested in the process,
the board asked me to stay on.
When I was in the other world,
I was selling people on buying my integrated circuits.
Here, I'm out selling people on the fact
that hunger's unacceptable,
and we need to come together to do something about it.
- [Seth] What, honestly, what do you think the solution is?
- I think about this a lot.
I think that we have an opportunity as a country
to come together and reduce the amount of food
that's getting thrown away.
How do we do that? I don't know.
I think the President needs to appoint
a czar of food recovery, or something like that.
I'm serious right now, okay?
Because, you know,
I was talking to a woman out in Arizona here
a couple of months ago and she was telling me
how much money they spend
to plow lettuce into the ground,
because they can't get trucks
to take this lettuce out of Arizona.
We need to figure that out.
Nobody came to me to say,
"I'm gonna teach you about hunger."
Just like nobody came to you
and said, "I'm gonna teach you about hunger."
When you accepted the assignment,
you went and learned about it, right?
It's a tough question to answer,
how do you get people to understand it?
Somehow, the message has to get out here.
The three simple words that we use around here
all the time is, hunger is unacceptable.
It is just unacceptable.
We as a nation have to figure out
how to not have hunger in this country.
- In order to apply to get a concealed handgun license,
it's one page.
In order to apply for food stamps to get food on your table,
it's 18 pages.
- You know, I have nothing wrong
against people wanting to own a gun.
It's one of our rights.
- Yeah, absolutely.
- But something seems wrong
when you have 18 pages to put food on your table
and one page to get a gun.
- [Claudia] Yeah.
- [Seth] A lot's broken in this country.
- [Claudia] Quite a bit.
Quite a bit, yeah.
- How long do you think it'll take for me to fill this out?
- Um, I think you could sit there a good hour?
The biggest thing is, seniors when they apply,
they on average get anywhere from 16 dollars,
which is, I think, probably the least
that we've heard them receive,
to, I think, I've heard 70 dollars being the highest.
Often what we hear is, it's not worth the hassle.
- We need to get past that stereotype,
and get these folks to go in
and actually offer them some assistance
in helping them qualify,
and fill out the application.
Because even if it is only 10 dollars,
for a lot of people, 10 dollars,
you know, that's enough for them to eat for several days.
And so we need to convince them,
in whatever way we need to do that,
that they need to go in and apply for this.
Because this is not a giveaway.
This is something that, you know,
they've been paying into this system
as long as they've been Americans,
and citizens in this country,
and they ought to be able to have access to it.
- It is 7:45 in the morning here in Austin, Texas.
We are actually heading outside of Austin.
We're going to a place called Lometa,
which is about two hours,
two and a half hours outside of Austin,
working with the Capital Area Food Bank.
We're going to the First Baptist Church
where the food bank takes all the food
and seniors come and pick it up,
and these are people who are educators, miners, farmers,
and they are hungry just like everyone else.
And it's gonna be interesting to see
how this all comes together.
When I arrived in Lometa,
I was taken aback by a scene that's all too familiar.
It's something we've all been witness to
in our history books.
Throngs of people waiting in bread lines
during the Great Depression.
And I think seeing something like this begs the question.
How much progress have we really made in 75 years,
where our seniors have to wait in line
just to get food that will probably last them about a week.
- [Roosevelt] The test of our progress
is not whether we add more
to the abundance of those who have much.
It is whether we provide enough
for those who have too little.
- [Seth] What was on the menu today?
I saw oranges, onions, rice.
- [Man] Grapefruit, cabbage.
Pinto beans.
- [Seth] Spaghetti, spaghetti sauce.
- Yeah.
- [Seth] Peaches and applesauce, right? - Green beans.
- [Seth] You've got seniors who are not only coming here,
but they're going to the other food distributions around.
- That's our information.
- [Seth] Because that may be their only source of food.
Maybe.
- Well, it'll be one of the sources of food.
This food won't last them a week.
- Right.
I had learned that you and your husband
not only come to the food distribution here in Lometa,
but you go to some of the others.
How many others do you go to?
- Two others. - Two others?
- Yeah.
- [Seth] So the food that you get here
and the food that you get at the other places,
how long will that last you?
- Uh, usually about two weeks.
- [Seth] Two weeks? - Or it might be a little more.
- And so after that food's gone,
then you can start all over again
and go back to the other places.
Is money that tight for you right now to be able to live?
- It's pretty tight. We're both on...
- [Seth] Social Security? - Social Security, yeah.
And that's it.
- What I think is driving a lot of this, not all of this,
is the rising healthcare cost.
Seniors between 125% of the poverty level and 200%,
so these are the seniors that don't qualify
for most of the public assistance programs,
they are spending 25% of their incomes now
on out-of-pocket healthcare costs.
- [Seth] 25?
- 25% of their total incomes
on out-of-pocket healthcare costs, on average.
- [Seth] Did you think though,
when you were making the good money
and you were saving for retirement and all that,
that you would be in a position
to where you would need to come to a food--
- [Woman] No, no.
- [Seth] You thought you planned well?
- Yeah.
I never dreamed that I'd be coming to a food bank.
- [Seth] Does that make you a little upset,
that you're at a point now where you've retired.
And now you have to work.
You can't enjoy your retirement years
because you have to work to try to keep
your head above water.
- At our age, nobody wants to hire us,
because we are retired, and we're over 65.
- In a small town like we are,
if somebody falls and breaks their leg
and is gonna be laid up for a while,
we as a community will minister to them.
But you get in a big city,
then you don't even know your neighbors.
Most poor people are givers.
They're willing to share.
If they have an apple,
they'll cut it in half and give you part of it.
- Between the oranges, grapefruit, onions and cabbage,
this is all that's left that's been distributed,
and this stuff will all go back now
to the Capital Area Food Bank
and be redistributed out to other food banks
so that other people in the area will get it.
So I think all in all, being out here in Lometa,
it was a pretty successful day
with the stuff that got distributed out,
and making sure that at least today,
seniors aren't going hungry.
So it's a good day.
- It's really critical that we really return to that idea
about neighbors helping neighbors.
- [Seth] What do you think that it's gonna take
in this country, in the state of Michigan,
in the city of Detroit,
to re-evaluate the resources and priorities
and say, we have to take care of these people.
- A lot of people are willing to help
if they knew what was going on.
Some people really do not know
what the plight of some of our seniors are.
- [Seth] Does that make you mad, or at least frustrated,
knowing that we throw away somewhere
between 50 to 70 billion pounds of food every year,
and we produce enough food in this country every year
to feed the entire world,
but yet we have people in the streets of Detroit
who are going hungry every day.
- It's frustrating, from the standpoint that,
we ought to be able to come up with a solution
to feed those who are most vulnerable.
- Forgotten Harvest is a food rescue operation.
We rescued over 23 million pounds of food last year.
This is surplus.
This is perfectly good food.
This food would have gone to waste in a landfill
otherwise, had we not gone and rescued that food.
- [Seth] How would it go to a landfill?
Is it something that they just,
after they've picked whatever is on the farm?
- In some cases, yeah.
In some cases, for an industrial supplier,
they may take it directly to the landfill.
On the farms, some of the farms that we rescue from,
this would be plowed under, potentially.
- [Seth] Really? - Because they couldn't use it.
Surplus, perhaps it wasn't the right size.
Perhaps it was a little too small, a little too big.
That's the food that we can rescue
that's just as good as anything
you get in the grocery store.
(bleeping)
When many people think of food waste,
they're thinking of what comes off the table.
But if it's not a perfect size,
our culture and our country has taught
the buyers, our retail buyers,
customers within their grocery store,
that it has to look perfect,
because if it doesn't look perfect, it's not good.
It's just simply not true.
So if a cucumber isn't exactly the right size,
or a tomato isn't exactly the right shape,
they won't even bring it from that industrial farm,
it'll be wasted before it ever got to the store itself.
And it's not someone's fault,
it's basically that we are such an efficient society.
We've learned how to produce it,
our agriculture process
is better than anything else in the world.
But there's a lot of waste with that.
- I just, I'm still...
I look at this,
and I eat yellow, red, orange,
and green peppers all the time,
and I cannot see a single thing
that would be wrong with this.
- There is absolutely nothing wrong with this at all.
- [Seth] To warrant surplus.
- This probably would have cost you five bucks in the grocery store.
Okay?
And this was surplus food, an overproduction,
that can't go to market.
So we're able to take that food, rescue that food.
This is gonna be out in someone's home next week.
- [Seth] Yeah.
- Ready to go.
For a lot of seniors this is good food.
Seniors love the produce,
know how to fix it,
and just need to get their hands on it.
Basically, our day starts at seven o'clock in the morning.
Our trucks go out, go to grocery stores,
major entertainment venues, pick up the food.
Most of that food, and we pick up from dairies,
we pick up from meat wholesalers,
anybody that's merchandising, retailing food
for the most part.
We have over 455 food donors.
We pick that food up, that afternoon,
we take that food to an emergency food provider,
agencies across the tri-county area,
we cover over 22,000 square miles,
we have about 200 agencies,
and we deliver that food, that day, to them.
By the next day, or that night, it's on someone's table.
- Food is a big issue for many people,
but nutrition is an even bigger issue.
Can I get three meals a day?
Yes.
Is it always nutritious?
No.
And yet it's the nutrition that important because,
you know, I take what I get.
And there is a lot of very good food in there,
but can I sit and say,
"Oh, well, gee, I need more calcium today.
"I don't have any milk,
"I don't have any eggs, I don't have any cheese.
"What am I going to do?"
If you actually look you will find
that there are people everywhere in North America
that are hungry,
that need the food and aren't getting it.
And it's because we are no longer community oriented.
We're all individual oriented.
We've lost the family value.
- Most black families that I know are not tight.
Not close.
- [Seth] Really? - Really.
You know, it's like everybody fending for themselves.
You know, being separated.
I think it's my daughter's religion and her beliefs
that make her see fit to help take care of her mother.
(laughs)
- [Seth] A lot of seniors are too proud to say,
"Hey, I need help!"
- [Carline] I can't understand why people won't ask for help
when they need it.
You know, there's nothing wrong with trying to do it,
but when you know you can't
and when you see you can't, holler.
- [Seth] Squeaky wheel gets the grease, right?
- Yes.
Yes, that's a true statement.
(chuckles)
- We see the poverty changing.
It's not among the people who've always been poor.
The new face of poverty among the elderly
are the people who used to be middle class.
They're the middle class former working people
who had, you know, they had it all.
They had the home, they had the car,
they had kids who went to college.
But now because of the recession,
their retirement dreams have been completely smashed.
Most people never thought they would find themselves poor.
They never thought they would be making daily choices
between food and medicine.
But you know what, they are.
They're making those choices every day.
And they're choosing to eat macaroni and cheese
instead of grilled chicken.
It's a very scary reality.
- Who does then step up and take the lead
and say, "Well this is my responsibility."
A lot of times we'll say, well that's the...
That's the government's responsibility,
or it's the Church's responsibility,
or it's the fire department's responsibility,
and we're not likely to wanna get involved.
- We have Forgotten Harvest,
which is a great help to us.
That one's going in the cooler,
and the rest of these are going in the freezer.
My name is Steve LaFraniere.
I've been with the Capuchin Soup Kitchen for 10 years.
It provides a great service,
especially to this neighborhood.
- [Seth] Are you finding that you're really getting help
because of the community, more so than really anything else?
I mean, is there that sense?
- I would have to say yes.
Earthworks, we ask them to grow
a certain amount of food for us each year,
and you know, we try to project what our number are,
what we're gonna need.
We got fresh beets.
We got spinach, kale.
Obviously they harvested a lot of beets yesterday,
because this wasn't here when I left yesterday,
I leave at three o'clock.
So also in the freezer here we have,
these are all tomatoes and peppers from the garden
that we've already harvested and cleaned.
So what I do is I freeze them in bags like this,
and when I wanna make soup or sauce,
I just pull a couple bags out the day before.
- [Seth] If you didn't have
this fresh produce from Earthworks,
what would the overall cost to this kitchen be?
- Oh, it would affect our food budget enormously,
because we try, on my menu,
I give them a vegetable every day with their dinner
and I give them a salad every day with their dinner.
So just the tomatoes alone,
the tomatoes and the lettuce with the way
that the economy is, and with the way that,
you know, like the droughts and whatnot,
and the prices of food just going up and up and up,
it would kill our food budget.
- Earthworks is an organic farm
located in the city of Detroit on the east side.
We grow fresh fruit, organic food for the soup kitchen.
Earthworks is actually a program
of the Capuchin Soup Kitchen.
I grew up down the street three blocks from here,
so this, again, is a very personal work to me.
I learned at a very early age
how powerful food is
in helping build and sustain
meaningful and lasting relationships in the community.
This is called our garden of unity.
As you can see, some of these four by four plots
are kind of roped off,
and some of them even have some names in it.
- Yes, I was gonna say, I see some of the names around here of everybody.
- Yeah. That's David's, Roxanne's,
Willy's is over there, Dinah's is over here,
Darryl's is over here.
And so, you may see some things growing here
that you don't see growing in other places,
because a lot of what we grow in our gardens
are dictated by what we serve here in the kitchen
and what we can sell at market.
And so this is a place, this is a very special place,
for guests of our soup kitchen.
Neighbors and community members
can grow their own food.
And so, they have a deeper connection with the Earth
and the food that they're putting inside their bodies.
A lot of the stuff that we grow here is seasonal,
what you see right now.
So over the course of the growing season,
you'll see a lot of different things.
Everything from asparagus,
to Hubbard squash, which we're harvesting right now.
Last year we grew close
to six to seven thousand pounds of food.
- I think that we do have a problem in America
of pushing away our seniors, pushing them back.
I think that we're so encapsulated with being young,
and so that, it's like a curse if you grow old.
I think that seniors should be allowed
to grow old gracefully and continue in the lifestyles
that they're used to.
We should not push them away in these facilities,
because they're like walking encyclopedias.
They have all this knowledge within them
that we're just ignoring.
- We really wanna make sure that as we look
at where people live as they age,
that they have that choice, they have options,
and that they can find a place that they can call home
that meets their physical, emotional,
and their health needs.
- We have volunteer days
Wednesday through Saturday from nine to 12.
And they sometimes come with a notion that,
you know, they're coming to give something of themselves,
but they often find
that they often receive a lot more in return.
We don't lack the resources in our community.
The resources are us, you know?
It's not these physical or material things
that we often value in today's society.
We are the champions of our own destiny.
We have a direct effect on the conditions that we live in.
And just awakening folks to that is very powerful.
Again, this is just an example of what you can do
if you put forth the effort.
- So this is where the documentary
was supposed to end, but something really cool happened
while we were filming in Detroit.
I got a call from a woman in San Francisco
who had heard about my journey,
and she wanted to know if I'd be willing to come there
and be part of an expert panel and share my story.
Expert I am not,
but someone who's willing to share what I learned?
Absolutely.
I'm just gonna be honest.
I never thought about being a senior,
I never thought about getting old,
I never thought about the issues that seniors face,
because I thought that if I haven't cared,
there have to be others out there like me.
I talked about starting in LA,
and not knowing a damn thing about senior hunger.
I briefly mentioned how I wanted to get out of LA
and go to Marin County to hang out with Victor Buick,
a man who still inspires me to this day.
And of course I even mentioned meeting Paul Fillow,
getting emotional, and how that was a huge turning point
in this documentary.
I shared my memorable experience
of being in the poorest place in America.
And the people of Booneville
are some of the best people I've ever encountered.
Hell, it was in Booneville where I had my ass grabbed
by an 80-year-old feisty senior,
the director of photography and I went clogging,
and I even went to church.
(christian music)
I'm not saying I'm going back to church anytime soon,
but it was a great experience nonetheless.
And then my journey took me to Orlando,
where I got to work with one of the oldest
senior-centric organizations in the country.
It was here that I really started to understand
and respect our seniors.
I got to call Bingo,
learn how to properly unfold a fan,
and I even got to rub elbows
with Miss Senior America herself.
- Thank you, I appreciate it so much.
- [Seth] But it wasn't until I got to Austin and Detroit,
to where I fully started to comprehend
the scope of the matter at hand.
Is it going to take more 60,000 square foot warehouses,
handling over two million pounds of food per month
to feed our seniors?
How beneficial is it for someone
to fill out 18 pages of paperwork,
with the hopes that they get enough money to live?
And why do we let farms and farmers
plow under billions of pounds of food per year?
Look, I don't have all the answers,
nor do I even pretend to.
I don't think any of us wanna be that senior
who's old and forgotten, going hungry every day,
waiting for someone to give a shit about their life.
I think it's gonna take more
than the people I met during this journey
who are fighting for seniors every single day.
I have to believe that this is gonna happen.
Because we can come together as a group,
as a society, and finally say, enough is enough.
And I'm just here to say that I'm living proof,
my life did a 180,
in how I went from not caring, to now being an advocate.
So, what I hope that this film does
is let people know that one person can make a difference,
but together, we can do a whole hell of a lot more, so...
(applauding)
(upbeat music)
- It's important for individuals
to understand the plight of our seniors.
- There's nothing harder than being a senior citizen, and...
You got aches and pains and all that kind of stuff.
We have a saying in our church,
"Growing old isn't for wimps."
- The problem of aging in America,
people call it a problem.
That's the problem.
It's not a problem to get older.
It's a problem if you don't.
Here in Washington we tend to think in short cycles.
This budget cycle.
We need to start thinking about the future,
and the future, and the future,
which is where I need to engage the younger generation.
My program is your future.
- As challenging as all of this work is,
and it is hard listening to people's problems
and not always being able to help them,
it's also uplifting and exhilarating
when you're able to come in and actually make a difference.
This field of working in the field of aging,
is not only about them, those old folks,
it's about us.
We are creating our own future,
and so we all have a personal stake
in making sure that life is better for older people,
because we want life to be better for us when it's our time.
- It might be you one day.
It might be your spouse, it might be your best friend
who ends up there.
But if they need the program,
if they need to be fed,
if they need somebody to bring their meals to them,
heck, it sure would be nice to have that there,
to know that it's there.
We don't know yet what's gonna happen.
There's a term we've heard called the silver tsunami.
It's coming, and we're gonna reach this point
where there's so many people dependent
on this type of a program,
if we don't lay that foundation today for what's to come,
but the time it's here, by the time that demand is here,
no one's gonna be ready for it,
and there's gonna be problems left and right.
- [Cleda] We have more food in this country
than we can consume.
And we have got to find a way so that organizations
can work together and companies and food distribution folks
can work together to get the excess food that we have
in this country and get it out.
I do think that hunger in this country can be solved,
and will be solved if we can all work together.
- My advice to the younger generation is,
this is going to happen to a lot of folks,
the way I'm looking at it.
They're gonna be hungry,
and you gotta make the right decisions and save your money,
and do nice stuff for people, because it comes back to you.
- [Seth] It sounds to me, and I hate to oversimplify,
but it just seems like seniors want somebody who cares.
They wanna know that somebody still cares about them.
- And I do.
(upbeat music)
- I was dancing in my 50s,
and nobody knew I was 50.
(chuckles)
- People struggle with looking at that reality
and trying to figure out what the solution is
and what they're gonna do to be part of that solution.
- Everybody deserves to be helped.
Maybe I don't have enough to help every month,
but whenever I can, I don't mind helping them.