Leftovers Page #9

instead of grilled chicken.

It's a very scary reality.

- Who does then step

up and take the lead

and say, "Well this

is my responsibility."

A lot of times we'll

say, well that's the...

That's the government's

responsibility,

or it's the Church's

responsibility,

or it's the fire

department's responsibility,

and we're not likely

to wanna get involved.

- We have Forgotten Harvest,

which is a great help to us.

That one's going in the cooler,

and the rest of these

are going in the freezer.

My name is Steve LaFraniere.

I've been with the Capuchin

Soup Kitchen for 10 years.

It provides a great service,

especially to this neighborhood.

- [Seth] Are you finding that

you're really getting help

because of the community, more

so than really anything else?

I mean, is there that sense?

- I would have to say yes.

Earthworks, we ask them to grow

a certain amount of

food for us each year,

and you know, we try to

project what our number are,

what we're gonna need.

We got fresh beets.

We got spinach, kale.

Obviously they harvested

a lot of beets yesterday,

because this wasn't here

when I left yesterday,

I leave at three o'clock.

So also in the

freezer here we have,

these are all tomatoes and

peppers from the garden

that we've already

harvested and cleaned.

So what I do is I freeze

them in bags like this,

and when I wanna

make soup or sauce,

I just pull a couple

bags out the day before.

- [Seth] If you didn't have

this fresh produce

from Earthworks,

what would the overall

cost to this kitchen be?

- Oh, it would affect our

food budget enormously,

because we try, on my menu,

I give them a vegetable

every day with their dinner

and I give them a salad

every day with their dinner.

So just the tomatoes alone,

the tomatoes and the

lettuce with the way

that the economy is,

and with the way that,

you know, like the

droughts and whatnot,

and the prices of food just

going up and up and up,

it would kill our food budget.

- Earthworks is an organic farm

located in the city of

Detroit on the east side.

We grow fresh fruit, organic

food for the soup kitchen.

Earthworks is actually a program

of the Capuchin Soup Kitchen.

I grew up down the street

three blocks from here,

so this, again, is a

very personal work to me.

I learned at a very early age

how powerful food is

in helping build and sustain

meaningful and lasting

relationships in the community.

This is called our

garden of unity.

As you can see, some of

these four by four plots

are kind of roped off,

and some of them even

have some names in it.

- Yes, I was gonna say,

I see some of the names

around here of everybody.

- Yeah.

That's David's, Roxanne's,

Willy's is over there,

Dinah's is over here,

Darryl's is over here.

And so, you may see

some things growing here

that you don't see

growing in other places,

because a lot of what

we grow in our gardens

are dictated by what we

serve here in the kitchen

and what we can sell at market.

And so this is a place, this

is a very special place,

for guests of our soup kitchen.

Neighbors and community members

can grow their own food.

And so, they have a deeper

connection with the Earth

and the food that they're

putting inside their bodies.

A lot of the stuff that

we grow here is seasonal,

what you see right now.

So over the course of

the growing season,

you'll see a lot of

different things.

Everything from asparagus,

to Hubbard squash, which

we're harvesting right now.

Last year we grew close

to six to seven

thousand pounds of food.

- I think that we do

have a problem in America

of pushing away our

seniors, pushing them back.

I think that we're so

encapsulated with being young,

and so that, it's like

a curse if you grow old.

I think that seniors

should be allowed

to grow old gracefully and

continue in the lifestyles

that they're used to.

We should not push them

away in these facilities,

because they're like

walking encyclopedias.

They have all this

knowledge within them

that we're just ignoring.

- We really wanna make

sure that as we look

at where people

live as they age,

that they have that

choice, they have options,

and that they can find a

place that they can call home

that meets their

physical, emotional,

and their health needs.

- We have volunteer days

Wednesday through

Saturday from nine to 12.

And they sometimes come

with a notion that,

you know, they're coming to

give something of themselves,

but they often find

that they often receive

a lot more in return.

We don't lack the

resources in our community.

The resources are us, you know?

It's not these physical

or material things

that we often value

in today's society.

We are the champions

of our own destiny.

We have a direct effect on the

conditions that we live in.

And just awakening folks

to that is very powerful.

Again, this is just an

example of what you can do

if you put forth the effort.

- So this is where

the documentary

was supposed to end, but

something really cool happened

while we were

filming in Detroit.

I got a call from a

woman in San Francisco

who had heard about my journey,

and she wanted to know if

I'd be willing to come there

and be part of an expert

panel and share my story.

Expert I am not,

but someone who's willing

to share what I learned?

Absolutely.

I'm just gonna be honest.

I never thought

about being a senior,

I never thought

about getting old,

I never thought about the

issues that seniors face,

because I thought that

if I haven't cared,

there have to be others

out there like me.

I talked about starting in LA,

and not knowing a damn

thing about senior hunger.

I briefly mentioned how

I wanted to get out of LA

and go to Marin County to

hang out with Victor Buick,

a man who still

inspires me to this day.

And of course I even

mentioned meeting Paul Fillow,

getting emotional, and how

that was a huge turning point

in this documentary.

I shared my memorable experience

of being in the poorest

place in America.

And the people of Booneville

are some of the best people

I've ever encountered.

Hell, it was in Booneville

where I had my ass grabbed

by an 80-year-old feisty senior,

the director of photography

and I went clogging,

and I even went to church.

(christian music)

I'm not saying I'm going

back to church anytime soon,

but it was a great

experience nonetheless.

And then my journey

took me to Orlando,

where I got to work

with one of the oldest

senior-centric organizations

in the country.

It was here that I really

started to understand

and respect our seniors.

I got to call Bingo,

learn how to properly

unfold a fan,

and I even got to rub elbows

with Miss Senior

America herself.

- Thank you, I

appreciate it so much.

- [Seth] But it wasn't until

I got to Austin and Detroit,

to where I fully

started to comprehend

the scope of the matter at hand.

Is it going to take more

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