COVID-19 breaks out and one of its top targets are the senior citizens. Senior citizens take shelter and placewell because they want to stay away from the disease that is ravaging the world, but when they start to run out of food they don’t know what to do. Fortunately, the young people of the community are there to help. Young people don’t have as high of a risk as senior citizens. These senior citizens need your help and there are many people in the community who can.

Lamorinda Village is a non-profit volunteer organization in the community that helps the local senior citizens. There are a variety of tasks that people can volunteer for. Anyone can sign up to be a volunteer. There are two forms to submit one is just about personal information and one is a background check and one can choose the specific tasks that you are able to do or would like to do. The National Charity League (NCL) works with them to help the local senior citizens.. “Lamorinda Village is very much a pay it forward type of organization. I just want to say thank you to the volunteers. That’s what makes this community so special,” in a Fox KTVU 2 interview, Kathryn Ishizu, Operation Manager with Lamorinda Village said.

Lamorinda Village has a Shelter in Place Program for the seniors so that they can stay home and other people can shop for them. This is a free program for all senior citizens in the area. Diablo Foods in Lafayette teamed up with Lamorinda Village to bring home food for the seniors. Connie Collier, co-owner of Diablo Foods, said that roughly 35 %of their shoppers are seniors. Lamorinda Village increased their number of volunteers from 80 to 120 and they are still rising. “We went from about 80 volunteers to 276 since Shelter in Place in March. We have connected with both NCL Chapters, Boy Scouts and Boys Team Charity and a slew of community volunteers. We are grateful for the tremendous response from our community!” Ishizu said. 

Lamorinda Village applies to seniors over the age of 55 in the Lamorinda area. People can sign up for a variety of tasks and people in the community love to help. “I like working with Lamorinda Village because the senior citizens are so thankful for our help and I like to see that my help is wanted,” senior Lindsey Bliss said. 

Senior citizens in this community are able to stay comfortably in their homes and still have access to the essentials that they need thanks to Lamorinda Village. Imagine if you were a senior citizen, this type of help could change the way that you live and it is changing the way that senior citizens in the community live. During this pandemic, we have provided over 1000 free shopping/pharmacy deliveries to all Lamorinda Seniors. “We have made over 1500 check-in calls (so crucial during this heatwave/smoke/fire threat). We have offered at least 4 zoom activities, presentations, conversations a week to alleviate the loneliness of sheltering at home for so long. We have stuffed and delivered emergency go bags and negotiated discounts for back up batteries in advance of the inevitable blackouts. Our concern now turns to fire evacuation for non-driving seniors and working on setting up volunteers to help drop off ballots in official ballot boxes for the upcoming election,” Ishizu said.  

Also coming to Miramonte is a club called Senior Outreach that is started by Kaylin Ishizu and Sophia Obnial. Sign up for the club to help the local seniors out during their time of need!