FOOD for Lane County - Extra Helping Coordinator Speaks Out

We Can Do This!

Extra Helping Coordinator Speaks Out
"FOOD for Lane County and its employees have made an incredible difference in my life and the lives around me.”

Ewert is the volunteer coordinator for the Extra Helping food program at Fourteen Pines, a senior disabled assisted living housing area in north Eugene. The program distributes surplus food, bread and produce to the housing area’s nearly 200 residents, as well as to three other Extra Helping programs in Lane County.

What began as a program for distributing surplus bread has grown into much more, said Ewert, who praised FOOD for Lane County for inspiring his neighbors to take action.

“The [Extra Helping] program started everything,” said Ewert. “It’s what got us to work together and gave us the confidence to know that we can do this. We have a kids’ club now. And we have a neighborhood network computer center.”

Ewert helps launch two new programs
This fall will see the launch of two new programs at Fourteen Pines — Jump Start, a jobs program for residents, and College and Career, a resource for residents looking for ways to further their education, training and more.

“College and Career is kind of a study group,” explained Ewert. “Residents help each other, they can write papers, they can work online, there’s no limit to how much printing they can do. They just go for it. Sometimes they’re in there until 3 in the morning.”

Ewert credits FOOD for Lane County for giving him and other Fourteen Pines residents the courage and the confidence to strike out and try something new.

“All our programs are self-funded and resident-run,” said Ewert. “And that’s because people have gained the confidence to know that they can do it. It may take two or three of us to do the job of one healthy person, but we can do it. And the key word is we.”

“As far as the low-income community goes, FOOD for Lane County has gone the extra mile for us. Everything from letting us use their conference room to putting on workshops, teaching us food handling, providing the Healthy Futures program, even turning one of the upstairs rooms [at FOOD for Lane County] into a mini daycare center for a workshop one day — they always go out of their way because they know there are a lot of disabled people, elderly people and moms with kids that live here.”

Pride in ownership
Before a serious back injury forced Ewert into early retirement, he worked with low-income people at Lane County Housing Authority and as a pastoral counselor.

“When I first moved into low-income housing I was pretty depressed,” said Ewert. “I went from earning $89,000 a year to $8,000. I had been upper income and I had those same feelings that people have toward people who live in low-income housing. One of the first programs I became involved with was the Extra Helping food program. It got me out of my hole. It gave me something to do. It gave me back some dignity. It made all the difference in the world.”

Ewert runs the program with the help of eight resident volunteers who take turns distributing the food. “We’ve never had a problem getting volunteers, even getting the kids to chip in,” said Ewert. “I’ve got too many volunteers now. It’s awesome.”

Sharing more than food
Ewert joins the other Extra Helping site coordinators for a meeting every two months, usually at FOOD for Lane County. There they share ideas and learn organizational skills, how to keep books, how to train volunteers, how to obtain a food handler’s card and more.

“A lot of the training that FOOD for Lane County provides is like on-the-job training, learning to work together,” said Ewert. “We’re all sick and tired of training. So we started playing with the word a little, started talking about workshops instead. And we stopped asking for volunteers and started asking for helpers. Everyone wants to help, but nobody wants to volunteer.”

“These are things that we’ve learned together. That’s why those meetings are so beneficial.” At a recent meeting, representatives from Senior Disabled Services provided valuable information on senior issues. “We learned all kinds of things from them we didn’t know,” said Ewert. “We talked about how to make sure our seniors are getting enough and the right food, tips for senior caregivers and how to help seniors without them feeling like they’re being helped.”

Growing confidence, cultivating dignity
“What’s important to me is seeing somebody who used to go back and forth to the mailbox with their head down and now all of a sudden their chin is up, they’ve got a sparkle in their eye and they start saying ‘I can.’” What’s important to me is to bring a little dignity into other people’s lives. And FOOD for Lane County is a part of that in a real big way.

“People who wouldn’t leave their apartments were changed when they realized ‘Hey, we own this [program].’ They’d been here 15, 20 years and done nothing until FOOD for Lane County offered us the surplus food. It gave them some pride in what they were doing. People who had just gone dormant started getting out of their apartments, started doing things, started gaining some confidence. And then — and this is what’s supposed to happen — they started getting into vocational rehabilitation, started getting jobs, started volunteering in other places and getting some experience.”

“FOOD for Lane County is an agency that has really made a difference in people’s lives, not just with food. I mean, wow. So much has happened with just a simple little bread program.”