It Takes a Holiday for Us to Care for the Elderly

The gifts arrived at the senior citizens center last week--a truckload of items so modest that I watched them unloaded with a twinge not of pleasure at the joy they’d bring, but shame that we have forced our elders to depend on holiday largesse for their basic needs.

There was a bag with Cheerios, coffee, sugar and creamer, for someone for whom breakfast has been a luxury. One box held matching robe and slippers, an answer to a grandmother’s prayers. A giant basket loaded with boxes of tissues, soap and toilet paper was wrapped gaily in red cellophane.

There were no Xboxes or Game Cubes on the Christmas wish lists compiled by the Organization for the Needs of the Elderly in Reseda, after employees of a movie studio offered to provide gifts for the agency’s neediest seniors. What the seniors wished for this year were things we don’t typically associate with Santa Claus.

Toilet paper, shampoo, a pair of sneakers, “with Velcro, please, because my fingers are too stiff to tie strings.” A blanket, a pair of slippers and a robe “because I have to keep the heat turned off in my apartment, and it’s always so cold.”

There was the World War II veteran and former boxer who, at 87, spends most of his time in a wheelchair, looking through old photo albums. He asked for only a basket of food and a book about the war.

A woman caring for her bedridden husband requested a little housekeeping help, because her recent stroke makes it hard to get around. She’s 79 and would love to receive a gift certificate for a few beauty products and a pair of cotton pajamas, size medium/large.

And there was a 77-year-old woman who had a stroke last year and has been shuffling around in donated shoes a size too big. She’d like a pair of shoes that fit over her braces and a reading lamp, because she can’t afford to keep the lights on at night and she would love to lie in bed and read.

The staff at the center in the San Fernando Valley was thrilled last month when the call came in from a major movie studio interested in adopting some seniors for the holidays. “There are always food and toy drives for families and kids, and that’s great,” said Donna Deutchman, associate director of the center. “But there’s not much attention paid to the elderly.”

She polled staff members, who put together a list of more than 200 of their neediest clients and asked them for their gift requests. The roster was submitted to studio officials, who surprised them by enlisting enough employees--from mail-room clerks to executives--to fulfill the wishes of every one on the list.

Studio officials asked that their company not be named; they’re not looking for publicity. What moved them to help was the same thing that touched center staffers as they gathered the gift requests.

“You look at their lists, and it just breaks your heart,” said Deutchman. “We asked them to give us one ‘need’ and one ‘wish.’ The stuff they considered luxuries are the kinds of things that most of us would consider critical needs.”

There were lots of requests for food baskets, nutritional supplements, gift certificates to local markets. Staples like toothpaste, soap and toilet paper were high on their lists. Their “wishes” were for things like shampoo, a phone card, a radio, books.

One woman, who can only afford to shop at thrift stores, said what she’d really like “is one of those sweatshirts with the zipper up the front. Do they even make those anymore?” A former hairdresser asked for nothing but a pair of dangly pink earrings and a matching set of hair barrettes, in pink too. And another woman burst into tears when she opened her gift last week. It was the first new bra she had owned in years.

The area the senior center serves might be considered an affluent one, stretching from the gated communities of Calabasas, north to the modest housing tracts of Van Nuys and Reseda, and south to the hills of Sherman Oaks, with its million-dollar homes. But it includes thousands of seniors living in virtual obscurity in aging apartment buildings, ramshackle homes and retirement complexes.

“Often, they’re invisible,” said Deutchman. “The old lady who lives across the street, and she’s kind of grouchy, and the grass in her front yard has gotten too tall. The old man who you never see coming out of his apartment anymore. ... We don’t think about them; we don’t realize what they’re going through. They’ve become very isolated.”

Many are trying to get by on small, fixed incomes, so they turn the heat off and keep the lights low, and stay in because they can’t afford gas or cab fare. Some are disabled, and getting around has become an ordeal for them. Often, they’ve outlived their spouses and children and have no relatives nearby.

“We did a recent study that showed that the average senior receives about $785 in monthly income, spends about $375 for [subsidized] housing, and another $300 on medicines each month,” Deutchman said. “That leaves only about $100 each month for food, clothing, utilities and other necessities.”

Among seniors who are mobile, the center is a popular gathering place. There are daily lunches and exercise classes, movies on Friday afternoons, and classes in everything from bridge and square-dancing to creative writing and computer use. For frail seniors and those with memory problems, there is an adult day-care program that offers physical therapy and activities like music and art.

For homebound seniors, the center can be a virtual lifeline. Its staff and volunteers pay daily visits to folks who are too ill, weak or poor to leave home. They deliver hot lunches, help with housework, give baths, do grocery shopping.

“For some,” Deutchman said, “our volunteers are the only people they’ll see, and the food we bring is their only meal of the day.”

That’s what happens when the tuna gift-pack runs out, the Cheerios are gone, and they are back to being hungry and alone.

Christmas generosity is a wonderful thing, but the needs of our senior citizens go on beyond the holidays. They need year-round gifts of compassion and love.

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Sandy Banks’ column runs Sundays and Tuesdays. She can be reached at sandy.banks@latimes. com.