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Homebound get early Thanksgiving meals
By Nissa LaPoint
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Photo by James Baca/DCRMeet 40-year-old Calvin Armstrong, an unemployed and uninsured stroke survivor who makes his way around in a wheelchair.
He greets visitors at the door of apartment No. 601 in the low-income Barney Ford Heights senior complex in Denver, where he’s lived with his mother since August after coming out of a coma to work on rehabilitating his right leg and arm.
Sunday morning was no exception when Armstrong opened the door with a smile for his nurse assistant Sylvia Green of the Dominican Sisters Home Health Agency, which provides free in-home nursing care for low-income elderly and chronically ill.
With this visit, Armstrong and other patients received a Thanksgiving meal from their nurses and volunteers of the agency.
Green brought with her three warm turkey dinners, complete with mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberries and pumpkin pie.
“It’s real nice,” said Armstrong, who agreed with his mother that they are blessed to be recipients of Green’s and the health agency’s help.
All morning Nov. 20, volunteers for the health agency cooked and delivered 233 Thanksgiving meals to the homebound, disabled and elderly in the Denver metro area.
“We do a complete turkey dinner for everyone,” said Krisandra Panting, executive director for the health agency, adding that the food is donated by the Knights of Columbus and other volunteers who cook dishes at home.
The health agency founded and organized this annual Thanksgiving volunteer effort for the benefit of those not able to afford a turkey dinner—many who receive the meals live on a monthly income of $650 to $1,000—and those without family or friends to visit on the holiday.
Just an hour before the meals were delivered, some of the agency’s employees and other volunteers began assembling the donated food in Project Angel Heart’s kitchen near East 41st Avenue and Colorado Boulevard.
Some 22 volunteers formed a line and dished in potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes and turkey into a tray before sealing it and packing it in a brown paper bag.
Several were first-time volunteers, either from the Knights of Columbus out of St. Joan of Arc Parish in Arvada or relatives.
“I love to help out people who are less fortunate,” said Ryan Browning, who added that the assembly was efficient and quick.
The opportunity to make meals for the poor brings back some volunteers year after year since the effort was initiated six years ago by two of the health agency’s employees.
As a health agency that operates completely on donations, Norm Conley said it’s an effort he fully supports.
“This is an agency that is so easy to fall in love with,” said Conley, a member of Knights of Columbus who asks fellow members to help out every year.
After assembling the turkey meals, volunteers divided them among 17 people who drove to several patients’ homes to drop it off.
“Some of these people, when they get this (meal), they cry,” said Sheryl Babiarz, a volunteer. “They can’t even get out of the house to go anywhere. Unless they have neighbors taking care of them, they’re just left behind.”
The meals are welcomed by the elderly and poor who don’t eat properly or those who wouldn’t normally have a Thanksgiving dinner, she said.
Sadaa Detrick was thankful for receiving the meal delivered to her home in the Sakura Square high-rise building in downtown Denver. In past years, she’s tried to cook and burnt the food.
“I don’t cook much,” said Detrick, who’s been blind since birth. “I don’t have anybody but myself.”
Detrick is visited by two people from the health agency every week who assist with keeping her pill box filled and help provide physical therapy for her hip and leg.
For some patients, nurses and aides are the only visitors they see every week, Panting said.
“This is huge to get a meal like this,” she said.
The agency started with delivering 79 Thanksgiving meals which grew to 398 last year, said Loretta Archuleta, who organizes the volunteer effort. The number of meals made and delivered declined this year because of the agency’s recent decision to eliminate their housekeeping program that serviced many other elderly and homebound.
The health agency has provided more than 100,000 nursing visits since 2001 and offers patients assistance with finding other resources for their needs. Their services are provided without preference to a patient’s origin or creed.
Sister Regis Nuva is the last consecrated Dominican in the agency that has served the Denver community since 1923.
“It’s always such a joy to help others,” Sister Nuva said. “That’s the most beautiful thing in the world.”
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