Leftovers Page #10

60,000 square foot warehouses,

handling over two million

pounds of food per month

to feed our seniors?

How beneficial is it for someone

to fill out 18

pages of paperwork,

with the hopes that they

get enough money to live?

And why do we let

farms and farmers

plow under billions of

pounds of food per year?

Look, I don't have

all the answers,

nor do I even pretend to.

I don't think any of

us wanna be that senior

who's old and forgotten,

going hungry every day,

waiting for someone to give

a sh*t about their life.

I think it's gonna take more

than the people I met

during this journey

who are fighting for

seniors every single day.

I have to believe that

this is gonna happen.

Because we can come

together as a group,

as a society, and finally

say, enough is enough.

And I'm just here to say

that I'm living proof,

my life did a 180,

in how I went from not caring,

to now being an advocate.

So, what I hope

that this film does

is let people know that one

person can make a difference,

but together, we can do a

whole hell of a lot more, so...

(applauding)

(upbeat music)

- It's important for individuals

to understand the

plight of our seniors.

- There's nothing harder than

being a senior citizen, and...

You got aches and pains

and all that kind of stuff.

We have a saying in our church,

"Growing old isn't for wimps."

- The problem of

aging in America,

people call it a problem.

That's the problem.

It's not a problem to get older.

It's a problem if you don't.

Here in Washington we tend

to think in short cycles.

This budget cycle.

We need to start thinking

about the future,

and the future, and the future,

which is where I need to

engage the younger generation.

My program is your future.

- As challenging as

all of this work is,

and it is hard listening

to people's problems

and not always being

able to help them,

it's also uplifting

and exhilarating

when you're able to come in

and actually make a difference.

This field of working

in the field of aging,

is not only about

them, those old folks,

it's about us.

We are creating our own future,

and so we all have

a personal stake

in making sure that life

is better for older people,

because we want life

to be better for us

when it's our time.

- It might be you one day.

It might be your spouse, it

might be your best friend

who ends up there.

But if they need the program,

if they need to be fed,

if they need somebody to

bring their meals to them,

heck, it sure would be

nice to have that there,

to know that it's there.

We don't know yet

what's gonna happen.

There's a term we've heard

called the silver tsunami.

It's coming, and we're

gonna reach this point

where there's so

many people dependent

on this type of a program,

if we don't lay that foundation

today for what's to come,

but the time it's here, by

the time that demand is here,

no one's gonna be ready for it,

and there's gonna be

problems left and right.

- [Cleda] We have more

food in this country

than we can consume.

And we have got to find a

way so that organizations

can work together and companies

and food distribution folks

can work together to get

the excess food that we have

in this country and get it out.

I do think that hunger in

this country can be solved,

and will be solved if we

can all work together.

- My advice to the

younger generation is,

this is going to happen

to a lot of folks,

the way I'm looking at it.

They're gonna be hungry,

and you gotta make the right

decisions and save your money,

and do nice stuff for people,

because it comes back to you.

- [Seth] It sounds to me,

and I hate to oversimplify,

but it just seems like seniors

want somebody who cares.

They wanna know that somebody

still cares about them.

- And I do.

(upbeat music)

- I was dancing in my 50s,

and nobody knew I was 50.

(chuckles)

- People struggle with

looking at that reality

and trying to figure

out what the solution is

and what they're gonna do

to be part of that solution.

- Everybody deserves

to be helped.

Maybe I don't have enough

to help every month,

but whenever I can, I

don't mind helping them.

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