“When you connect to one of these older adults, you’d be surprised how they can change your life,” says Jamee Nowell Smith of Senior Community Services.
3 weeks ago
Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 audio
Marge Wible, 90, and Thomas Homer, 73, volunteer in the kitchen at Lutheran Settlement House in Fishtown, preparing food for other seniors. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!
It’s always pretty busy at Lutheran Settlement House in Philadelphia’s Fishtown neighborhood, but even more so on Thursday mornings when the center hosts its weekly food pantry grocery store.
Standing in front of two industrial-size refrigerators, volunteer Maria Tanczak put out packages of frozen ground chicken and mushroom burger patties on a table.
“I always man the frozen section here. This is my realm,” she said, adding bags of frozen peaches to the table.
As people came in to grab free vegetables, produce and other supplies, Tanczak, who is 75, greeted many of them by name.
“Angel, how are you doing this morning?” she asked a man who is a regular customer.
With the tips of her hair dyed an electric blue and a smile on her face, she’s eager to help and answer questions about the food.
“Everyone asks me, ‘How do you cook this?’ and ‘How do you make that?’ Some things I know, some I don’t,” she said, laughing.
Tanczak, a longtime Fishtown resident, retired at 66 after working several decades, mostly at a consulting firm.
“And I didn’t want to be one of those that just sit around,” she said. “I’m not a couch person.”
She soon found her way to Lutheran Settlement House, which has occupied the same brick building on Frankford Avenue since 1902. The organization provides food assistance, education programs, activities and other social services to people of all ages.
Tanczak takes exercise and art classes during the week and volunteers in between.
“I like being a part of all that,” she said. “I feel like I’m contributing something.”
Over the last two decades, Fishtown has undergone rapid gentrification and become a desired neighborhood for younger and wealthier Philadelphians. But the fast-changing environment has also disrupted social networks and community ties for some of the area’s oldest residents.
The organization, they say, has become a place of connection and opportunity where they can form new friendships, get aging-related resources and find a renewed purpose in volunteering.
“It’s a great place to be on so many levels,” said Joan Creamer, 83, a regular volunteer. “It’s like an unfound gem in this city.”
Lutheran Settlement House serves about 6,000 people each year, leaders said, including members of its program for adults 55 and older, called The Center. Seniors make up a robust part of their volunteering workforce.
More than 67 older adults volunteered 3,987 hours in the last year — making up more than half of all volunteer hours throughout the organization.
In addition to the food pantry, other visitors and members spent a recent Thursday taking a free computer class, grabbing a cup of coffee with friends in the main dining room or waiting for a picture book workshop to start.
“A lot of members have been coming to us for decades,” said Erica Zaveloff, director of development and communications. “They’re here now because they want to maintain connections and relationships as Fishtown has changed. They can’t just go to the corner store and get a $2 cup of coffee cause it’s a $6 cup of coffee from what’s going to be Starbucks in a couple weeks.”
In the main kitchen, another group of volunteers was hard at work putting together meals for lunchtime and cutting donated cakes from a nearby bakery.
“We slice them down, but they’re very big and they’re hard to slice down sometimes. And we do make a mess,” said Margaret Wible, who goes by Marge.
Wible volunteers almost every day.
“First of all, it gets you out of the house. It gets you out amongst people,” she said. She recently just turned 90, which hasn’t slowed her down much.
“My body itself, I can do it. And I push it sometimes, but I think it’s for a good health thing, too,” she added.
Thomas Homer has been coming to Lutheran Settlement House since he was a kid. Now 73 and still living in Fishtown, he grew up in a house that once stood on the same block.
It has since been torn down and converted to a parking lot.
After he retired, Homer said he knew he needed to find something else to do because sitting at home wasn’t an option for him.
“My father retired, he worked all his life, and within a year he died from sitting around the house,” he said.
He now volunteers at the center five days a week. As he lined up brown trays on the table, Creamer carried over a box full of placemats, napkins and silverware, her hair pinned back into a twisted bun.
“The nice thing about serving and setting up and all is, you get to talk to everybody, not just the people at your table,” she said. “So, it’s nice. Great socialization.”
The center, Creamer said, is part of the community in unique ways. It’s largely self-governed, with members themselves involved in designing programs and activities offered there.
It’s also an affordable option for many seniors with limited fixed incomes who are just looking for a place they can meet up with people and have fun, whether in a belly dancing class or for a themed party.
“It’s not breaking the bank,” she said. “A lot of places you go, it’s so much to get in, a lot of money to play bingo. It’s just cost prohibitive for a lot of people.”
And they’re always looking for more people to join them at the center, whether as volunteers or members, Creamer said.
“It’s not just physical. Mental, emotional — it feeds everything,” she said.
Back in the food pantry room, customers still trickled in, but the mad rush had passed. Volunteer Starlene “Star” Martin, 66, walked from table to table, taking stock of what was left.
“Looking on the outside, you wouldn’t think all this took place in here, but once you get in, it’s beautiful,” she said.
She only began volunteering here last year after walking by the building one day, just a short walk from her home just a couple blocks away. Before joining, Martin said she was feeling isolated and depressed.
“I’m by myself and I took an earlier retirement because my job closed, so I felt like the walls were closing in,” Martin said. “Now, I feel good every day when I walk back into my house, knowing I did something good today.”
WHYY News interns Ryan Chi and PJ Lee contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the correct name and age of Joan Creamer, 83.
Get daily updates from WHYY News!
Sign up