Tyler

By PATRICK BUTLER
Religion Editor

Maybe Bennie Henderson, of Tyler, 89, didn't realize who was giving him a sack of groceries while he sat at his kitchen table Friday. Perhaps he didn't understand just why newspaper and television reporters were listening to him answer United States Department of Agriculture Under Secretary Nancy Johner's questions of how he was faring.

He probably didn't know Ms. Johner directs 15 national food assistance programs that have a budget of $58 billion a year as under secretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services. Or that her visit to his home would never have happened if not for a chance conversation in North Texas last summer - where Dallas and bigger populations lay and most of the national attention seems to go.

But on Friday, Ms. Johner was accompanied by a crowd of East Texas Food Bank workers, regional USDA officials, her Washington, D.C. communications staff and reporters from local newspaper and television stations . She was happily handing out food to five Tyler households, and Bennie Henderson's was one. These were the first official recipients of a "unique, creative and innovative program" that originated in Tyler, Ms. Johner said.

"In 18 months as under secretary, I haven't seen a similar collaborative effort of this nature in the country to Senior Servings," she said, smiling broadly. "This is something the entire nation could learn from."

The Senior Servings collaborative feeding program came about through efforts of the East Texas Food Bank, the Junior League of Tyler and Tyler's Meals On Wheels. After a year and a half of testing foods, conducting trial runs, finding convenient packaging and listening to people's preferences, the program was ready to launch, said Robert Bush, executive director of the food bank.

That's when he casually mentioned the program to Ms. Johner during an America's Second Harvest event near Dallas. Second Harvest is the parent organization of more than 200 U.S. food banks, including Tyler's.

"The under secretary was immediately interested" said Steven Savage, chief of communications on Ms. Johner's staff.

CARING, COMPASSION

None of the USDA officials had visited Tyler on business before, despite the fact that East Texas Food Bank has Texas' largest food bank freezer and distributes more than 12 million pounds of food a year to 26 East Texas counties.

After hurricanes Katrina and Rita ripped the Southern coastline, Tyler was one of four U.S. cities designated as a "first responder" to help with food shortages during national disasters and emergencies.

In October, America's Second Harvest directed the ETFB to send 756 boxes of food to California for refugees fleeing wildfires. Each box would feed a family of four for two days. The food was already prepared and packaged for emergencies, bundled and ready in a few hours for a truck sent from Dallas to take it away.

"We can send more if we have to and not miss a beat with the feeding programs we have here in East Texas," said Food Bank Operations Director Joey Morris. "We're ready."

Ms. Johner said she plans to spread the message far and wide that there's something to watch in East Texas.

"This is about caring and compassion for the community," she said to the Tyler Paper after the news conference. "This is what it's all about. I'm going to be telling everyone, wherever I go about a program of cooperation in Tyler, Texas called Senior Servings. And I go to a lot of places."

FEEDING NEEDS

Senior Servings began with a presented need, Bush said.

"We started thinking about this weekend feeding program for seniors after we got feedback that some seniors were saving a single day's worth of food - on Friday - and splitting it into fourths to last the weekend. That's unacceptable," he said. "For one thing, it renders medications largely ineffective because they need to be taken with food and that can lead to illness. Then there's the poor nutritional content to consider. That also leads to bigger problems. We started strategizing, analyzing what we could do."

The Junior League of Tyler contributed $15,000 to fund the pilot program for Senior Servings, said Leanne Strnadel, president of the league.

"The Junior League is all about building a better Tyler," Mrs. Strnadel said. "And Senior Servings is one of those programs. I'm overwhelmed how this program has taken off."

And the cost of the program is astonishingly low, according to one federal official, who asked not to be identified.

"You can feed a senior for $3 a weekend, $156 a year?" he said, quickly tapping at his calculator. "That's only about $0.43 a day. That's less than a cup at Starbuck's each week. It's astonishingly low."

"What we'd like East Texans to do is 'adopt' a senior for $156 a year," Bush said. "They can make their donations directly to our special Senior Servings fund."

The Food Bank prepares the packages and the nutritional content is overseen by food bank staffer Barbara Folsom. Meals On Wheels - which takes the weekend off from its own weekly food preparation - delivers the ready-to-eat foods to 300 recipients in Tyler.

That number is just a drop in the bucket, Bush said.

"We're just scratching the surface today," he said. "There are more than 4,000 seniors in our area that need weekend food. By next year, we hope to double the number we're serving today."

Ms. Johner said she was "very happy" by what she was seeing.

"So many times people just wait for government 'to do something' about their problems," she said, "but here you see proactive local entities, doing things without waiting. That's why we came out here to reinforce this wonderful program. I'm very happy to see it."

Bennie Henderson may not have had Ms. Johner's concept in mind when the media invaded his kitchen Friday. But what he clearly understood was the food presented in a sack that read "Senior Servings" on its side. It was enough, he said, to get him through the weekend without worrying about what he could "scrape up" in the house.

And for that he was very grateful, and told Ms. Johner so.

"This is wonderful," Henderson said when the under secretary asked what it meant to get the small weekend allotment of food. "I tell you, this is great because you can't make it on Social Security today. They give you a raise, a small raise that doesn't cover the cost of living and then take part of that back (in taxes). It's not enough to get by on, so this helps me a great deal. Thank you."

After the lights, cameras and microphones had moved away from Mr. Henderson - after "stand-ups" had been done in his kitchen for the five o'clock news and the little throng of federal officials had been swept away to the next location, Mr. Henderson was left sitting quietly, alone at the table in his little kitchen.

He sighed in the silence while still clutching the small paper bag of supplies that would get him through the next two days. He finally looked up.

"You know, I worked 35 years at one place, and 19 in another," he said. "I was born here in Tyler and lived here all my life. I can't cook anymore and if it wasn't for Meals On Wheels, and now this, I don't know what I'd do."

Asked if he got what he wanted, Henderson looked down at the food in his lap.

"Thank God for this," he smiled. "I got what I needed."

SENIOR SERVED: Tyler senior citizen Bennie Henderson, 89, is one of the first to receive “Senior Servings” from USDA Under Secretary Nancy Johner on Friday. The collaborative program by the East Texas Food Bank, Meals On Wheels and the Junior League to feed seniors on weekends is the only one of its kind in the country, Ms. Johner said.
((Courtesy Photo))