A volunteer wearing gloves sets a box of supplies on a Johnson County senior’s front porch as she gazes out her window.
This scene is common as COVID-19 infections rise in Johnson County and fears of senior citizens grow, said Kim Smith, executive director of Johnson County Senior Services.
With the help of the newly formed Johnson County COVID-19 Community Mitigation Team and monetary support from local utilities, senior services is expanding its home distribution operations to help local seniors self-isolate, Smith said.
The team is composed of local officials including Whiteland Town Manager Norm Gabehart, Franklin Mayor Steve Barnett, Greenwood Mayor Mark Myers and Johnson County Commissioner Ron West, along with utility, school and nonprofit leaders, Gabehart said.
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Click here to purchase photos from this gallery“Our goal is to provide access to resources to senior citizens, families and any other residents within Johnson County; as well as promote and facilitate communication between government entities in Johnson County,” according to the mitigation team’s mission statement.
The idea for the team grew out of a desire to bring more community organizations together to fight COVID-19, Gabehart said.
“We have to prop each other up to survive this thing,” Gabehart said. “This is a worldwide crisis, but we in Johnson County are going to prevail by helping each other as we always do.”
The team’s first project is opening a collection and senior services distribution center at 180 S. Jackson St., Franklin, a city-owned former auction house that Barnett is allowing the agency to use during the crisis.
JCSS already distributes supplies to 1,500 seniors each month, but this facility will allow operations to grow to accommodate more seniors, Smith said. The larger space will also give volunteers room to disinfect all items to be distributed and to house personal protective equipment that each volunteer will be required to wear while handling supplies, Smith said.
In the past two weeks, senior services has added 140 food deliveries to its normal schedule, and has started delivering hot meals daily to 50 seniors.
Agency staff and volunteers began setting up in the new space on Monday, and hope to get more supplies to seniors as soon as possible, Smith said. With COVID-19 stockpiling by consumers, the normal channel of bulk ordering from local stores has been disrupted, but senior services is working with local food pantries and churches to gather supplies for the distribution, Smith said.
Seniors often feel like an afterthought, so senior services is grateful that local leaders are doing their part to prop up seniors at the time when help is needed most, Smith said.
“It is a huge effort from the town manager of Whiteland, our mayor in Franklin and so many others to show that seniors do matter,” Smith said. “Seniors are the most vulnerable in the entire county.”
With seniors being the most vulnerable population to COVID-19, they now depend more than ever on senior services for help, Smith said.
“So many of them who were able to be transported to the grocery stores are now petrified to leave their own homes,” Smith said. “The increase has grown exponentially for [home distribution].”
Before the pandemic, distribution was reserved for seniors who are unable to shop for themselves. But now, even able-bodied seniors need help, Smith said.
She described the need and desperation among seniors as heart-wrenching, and said social distancing and self-isolation has also been hard on seniors, Smith said.
“They are calling us and they are scared,” Smith said. “They are crying and they are suffering. [They’re] depressed in isolation.”
Often home alone, for some seniors, seeing the volunteer drop-off supplies is the closest thing to human contact they get, she said. Even then, volunteers are asked to set the supplies on the porch and call the seniors to make sure they know the supplies are outside. They do not come into contact with each other, she said.
Needed supplies include non-perishable and easy-to-prepare foods, such as soup, canned meats and peanut butter, as well as toiletries, disinfectants and hand sanitizer, Smith said.
A $1,500 grant from Duke Energy and a $2,000 donation from Johnson County REMC certainly helped, but more help is needed, Smith said.
The senior distribution center is the first of several ways the Mitigation Team plans to give back, Gabehart said, adding that more initiatives will be announced in the coming days and weeks.
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Here is a look at how you can help Johnson County Senior Services during this time of desperate need:
Donations can be made online at <a href="http://jcseniorservices.org/donate">jcseniorservices.org/donate</a>, by phone at 317-738-4544 or by mail to 731 S. State St., Franklin, 46131.
Individuals or organizations with extra supplies can call senior services to arrange a drop-off.
Seniors in need of supplies or in need of a ride to a critical medical appointment can call senior services.
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