On the Thursday before Thanksgiving, the line out of a McDonald’s in Denver extended out the door.
The people weren’t clamoring for Big Macs, however. They were there to partake in a complimentary Thanksgiving feast that the owners of the franchise, Geta and Janice Asfaw, have been serving to the poor of their neighborhood for 23 years.
Originally, the Asfaws cooked up a meal consisting of turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing for the area’s senior citizens, but lately, they’ve become even more generous. The event now includes a presentation of scholarships to high school students and a bike giveaway for elementary schoolers.
Last year, the Asfaws distributed 250 bicycles to low-income children nominated by their teachers for academic achievement or persistence in the face of obstacles. (Through the years, the Asfaws have united with other Denver restaurant franchise owners and nonprofits to distribute 1,700 children’s bikes.) Last year, Geta told Austin Briggs of the Denver Post, “We want them to hear that it doesn’t matter where they are today, it’s where you are 20 years from now that matters.”
Geta knows a few things about how to bring about personal transformation through hard work. He left Ethiopa to attend college in America in 1972, and after a coup in 1974 made it impossible to return home, he stayed in the U.S., earned his college degree and eventually became a citizen. In 1991, he bought his first McDonald’s franchise and now owns eight of them.
Last week, Geta told the Denver Post, “We’ve always felt that as local businessmen we should give back to the community — not just take the money. That’s what we said at the start. If we’re going to (be here), we’re going to do that. Even when we didn’t have much, we always felt it was our responsibility.”
So if you ever find yourself in Denver with a hankering for French fries, we can’t think of nicer people to get your craving satisfied by.
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Tag: helping seniors
When an Elderly Veteran Tried to Build a Wheelchair Ramp, These Volunteers Didn’t Let Him Go at it Alone
Eighty-six-year-old Navy veteran John Walker of Gulfport, Miss., is used to taking care of himself. So when his wife Kathleen broke her leg, he decided to build a wheelchair ramp to make it easier to get her in and out of the house.
But when the Retired Senior Volunteer Program of Harrison County (RSVP), learned about the situation, the group contacted Disability Connection, a nonprofit that helps with emergency home repairs and modifications for veterans, the disabled and low-income families.
Disability Connection executive director Janie O’Keefe tells Trang Pham-Bui of WLOX that after Walker build his ramp, “We came and inspected it and it did not look like it was as safe as it should be. It did not look like it would survive long term, so we agreed to basically start over and give him a fresh, brand-new ramp.”
At first Walker refused the help. “I’m used to doing for myself, for my family,” he said. But he soon realized he and his wife could use the support of people like U.S. Army Specialist Kegan Wood, who pitched in to build the new ramp using materials that the Home Depot donated. Pham-Bui asked Walker how he felt to see so many people volunteering to work on the project and he says, “It makes me want to cry.”
“If anybody deserves it, you and your wife do,” O’Keefe tells Walker.
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
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These Autistic Students Struck a Beautiful Friendship With Local Seniors
One group is often ignored, the other group is often underestimated. But what happens when you put them together?
A beautiful partnership.
As 11Alive reports, every Tuesday the seniors at the Dogwood Forest Retirement Community get a visit from autistic students at the Lionheart School in Alpharetta, Georgia. Together they’ve formed a friendship that’s mutually beneficial and also tremendously meaningful.
MORE: Watch How This Boy With Autism Renders His Class Speechless
It’s already difficult to land a job in this recovering economy, but for young adults on the autism spectrum, it’s even harder. According to a study published in HealthDay, only 55 percent of young adults with autism have a job in the first six years after high school.
The students at Lionheart, however, are learning real-life skills that will help them get ready for the workplace. You’ll see at 1:57 in the clip below that these students help deliver mail, set the tables, and entertain the residents with games and music.
Meanwhile, the retirees get to interact with these students and make new connections. As one elderly man named Sparky told the TV station, “It means a lot to have people come to see us.”
ALSO: This Unique Education Initiative Connects Lonely Seniors to Chatty Teens
Victoria McBride, head of therapeutic services at Lionheart, told Huffington Post that “social interactions and language processing can be difficult for both students in the school and seniors at the retirement center. Because of this, the pace of conversation and social interaction between the students and the residents can be slower, which allows both parties to engage and interact with more confidence.”
Sounds like a win for everyone involved.
Besides working with the seniors at the retirement center, the younger students at Lionheart also participate in the school’s adorable “LionPaws” program. NorthFulton.com reports that students get to interact with puppies who will become service dogs. This mutually beneficial program helps autistic children relax and reduce their anxiety while their new fuzzy friends get to interact with people.
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These New York Seniors Are on the Cutting Edge of Telemedicine
What happens when you take 21st century technology and adapt it to a 20th century environment? A New York City pilot program is finding out, by bringing telehealth to four senior centers around the city. Pace University and VitalCare Services partnered with the city to try telehealth with about 100 residents over the course of six months, and the response from residents and staff has been amazing. VitalCare technicians used mobile technology to modernize methods of measuring blood oxygen, blood pressure, and weight at the senior centers. Everything syncs wirelessly, improving access and records at the same time. Residents have embraced it as a weekly way to stay aware of their health status and keep in touch with their physician teams, and saving the trip from 191st Street to the Village adds convenience, helps adherence and continuity, and cuts costs. Health professionals point to benefits like the ability to log in remotely and check all of the available information, and the shared space makes it easier for teams of physicians to communicate office-to-office. And the technicians love the speed and efficiency as well as the opportunities to connect with so many patients. The pilot is proving instrumental in helping residents maintain healthy, positive lives, and it’s breaking down barriers, from budgets to languages, and building confidence for a better-connected health service system.
It Started as a Winter Chore. Then It Turned Into a Movement
D.C. dad Kenny Wright had no idea that assigning his two young sons a simple winter chore would spark a civic movement. After a recent onslaught of snow on the east coast, Wright asked Kenny Jr. and Darin to shovel the walkways outside their elderly neighbors’ homes. Their generosity caught the attention of local TV station FOX 5, which then aired a segment on the brothers for its “Pay It Forward” campaign. After the story aired, a whole army of citizen volunteers stepped up to help. Jeffrey Richardson, who leads the volunteer group Serve DC, told the station, “Between the last 24 hours, we have had over 170 new volunteers sign up to be a part of the District’s snow team and support seniors and others who have access and functional needs.” Some of the new volunteers were immediately sent to wards that needed shoveling, but the influx was so huge that many were put on a waiting list to help on future projects. As the Wrights demonstrated, even a small act of generosity can snowball into some much bigger.
MORE: A Boston group brings people together to shovel driveways for those who can’t.
Why Don’t Old People Like Talking to Robots?
The 2012 movie Robot and Frank imagined a not-too-distant America in which companion robots are used to assist the elderly in daily living. It’s not so far-fetched — many researchers are working to make this sci-fi scenario a reality in the U.S. (Robots already assist with elder care in Japan.) But a new study suggests that older Americans might not feel comfortable with an automated assistant. Researchers at the universities of Notre Dame and Missouri studied 65 seniors in an elder-care setting, and noted how they gave a robot directions, such as to fetch their glasses in a different room. Then the researchers compared how the seniors communicated the same request to a fellow human, and found that the seniors spoke conversationally with people, while using terser, more direction-oriented requests with the robots. Both ways get the job done, but the seniors reported preferring to speak with the human. Studying the exact words seniors use to talk to robots is important so scientists can program robots accurately, and better understand how to make machines serve man more effectively.