Jennifer Lesher still thinks about the veteran with the cats.
He had no family, and he spent most of his days inside his apartment with them for company. So when Lesher's team came by, they brought a stack of festively wrapped presents. They set up a small Christmas tree in his living room and decorated it, and they didn't forget a few treats for the cats. It was, he told them afterward, one of the best Christmases he'd had in a long time, not only because someone had thought of him but because someone had thought of his cats, too.
That delivery is one of hundreds Home Instead's Riverside office makes each December through Be a Santa to a Senior, a holiday gift drive for older adults who are isolated, low-income or simply alone. The program started in 2003, according to Home Instead, and local franchise offices run it with help from businesses, nonprofits, retailers and community volunteers.
A tag, a size, a pair of slippers
The way it works is simple. Each tag on the tree carries one senior's first name, gender and clothing and shoe or slipper size. That's it. Residents take a tag, buy the items unwrapped and drop them in the collection boxes set up at the tree, and a crew of community volunteers wraps each gift and checks it against the right sizes.
The lists run to pajamas, robes, blankets, non-skid socks, slippers. Comfort, mostly.
Last season, said Lesher, the general manager of Home Instead's Riverside office, the drive collected close to 1,500 gifts and distributed them to about 600 seniors around the county. The gifts go to local agencies and senior communities, including U.S. VETS and the Riverside County Office on Aging, that send over lists of residents who would otherwise go without. Through December, Lesher's team does pickups several times a week while the volunteers wrap.
"We have recipients who look forward to this throughout the year," she said.
Isolation that doesn't wait for December
For Lesher, the drive is the once-a-year, visible version of something her staff sees constantly. Home Instead sends caregivers, whom the company calls Care Pros, into seniors' homes year-round, and for some clients, she said, that visit is the whole of their human contact.
"Sometimes our Care Pros are the only face our client will see in a day," she said. Sometimes the family lives out of the area; sometimes there is no family at all.
"We don't just see this around the holidays," she said. "Unfortunately, we see it too often throughout the year."
Lesher has worked in senior care for more than 23 years, and she said Riverside's older population keeps climbing as baby boomers reach the age of needing help. The pandemic, she said, made the isolation worse and made it stick.
"It was forced on a lot of people during those years, and some never quite recovered," she said. "I feel it became their normal."
How to be a Santa to a senior
Tags go up Friday, Nov. 13, and the drive runs through Dec. 15. This year the trees, with collection boxes beside them, will be at Riverside Community Hospital, 4445 Magnolia Ave., and Parkview Community Hospital, 3865 Jackson St.
The trees have been a holiday fixture for years. Before the pandemic the program had more locations around the city, and Lesher said that between the current sites and support from community partners, residents and the office's own caregivers, there is always enough to go around.
Nationally, Home Instead says Be a Santa to a Senior has provided more than 3 million gifts and drawn more than 65,000 volunteers since it began. But the number Lesher returns to is smaller and closer to home: the roughly 600 neighbors who got a wrapped box last year, and the ones still on this year's lists.
"It's an event we're very proud to be part of," she said.
More information: Be a Santa to a Senior runs Friday, Nov. 13 through Dec. 15, with Christmas trees and collection boxes at Riverside Community Hospital, 4445 Magnolia Ave., and Parkview Community Hospital, 3865 Jackson St. To pick up a tag, drop off an unwrapped gift or volunteer, contact Home Instead's Riverside office at 6751 Brockton Ave., 951-369-7047 or HomeInstead.com/282.
