Celebration for everybody takes combined effort: Elderly, homeless given reason to party.

Elderly, homeless given reason to party

By Bill Johnson
Denver Post Columnist

Posted: 12/17/2010 01:00:00 AM MST

It was either the most joyous event I have witnessed or the most outrageously sad.
They arrived at the little brown brick building on East 18th Avenue on Thursday in wheelchairs, on walkers, with crutches and canes. The youngest was 55. The oldest was 92.
It was holiday-party day at Senior Support Services. For the more than 250 people who came, it meant a free meal, a bit of socializing and a small hand-sewn bag filled with gifts, a toothbrush, a flashlight and a pack of gum.
This was a large group of genuinely happy people. For one day, at least, they would not have to stand in a soup line waiting to be fed. Instead, they were seated at tables. Volunteers waited on them, handed them presents.
When we were kids, we called them "old folks." Nearly half, I was told, had fought in the country's wars.
Nearly as many, I was told, are homeless.
You stand there, look at the faces and wonder if this is what we have become as a nation. If a 92-year-old man who worked and served in the military has no place to call his own, well, are there any guarantees for any of us?
When it was over, Molly Ream, the director of development, stood exhausted in her back office, watching over an elderly man named Cornell, who lay splayed in a chair, breathing oxygen while awaiting the paramedics.
"This was an amazing day," she said, gently rubbing Cornell's shoulder and reassuring him things would be OK.
She had been up since the night before because she was forced to prepare five hams and 18 chickens for the party when a promised donation of cooked turkeys fell through.
She was homeless in 2007 when her job disappeared. She landed this job two years ago. She loves it.
"I get to see the best of humanity every day," she said.
She sees it, she said, in the volunteers. The center is open every day from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., providing its clients three meals a day and a place to stay warm and socialize between the time the shelters close down and reopen.
"We assume a lot of things about the homeless," she said. "Some of it is correct. Most of it is wrong.
"I see them as survivors. Others see them as failures. To me, they are human testimony to sheer will, the ability to survive horrible circumstances."
Two hundred people a day on average come to the center. Many are new to it. In previous years, the number of newly homeless people who registered at the center averaged 50 per month. The average now is about 90.
"There is really no excuse for it in America," Ream said, "that older people in this country should have no one to care for them."
All that people at the center want and need, she explained, is love, a little kindness, a little care.
At 1 p.m., the center is shut down so the staff and volunteers can clean post-party. It is clear some clients have no idea what to do or where to go. So they mill about or sit on the grass outside and stare into the windows.
I ask Molly Ream, who sees this every day, if it ever gets to her. She double-takes before smiling broadly.
"Every night, I ask myself what they would do if we weren't here," she said. "I also tell myself I did what I could today. I have to let it go or I'll become bitter.
"I don't want that. I want to be kind."