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Some Fort Wayne seniors have missed their Senior Pak Groceries from Community Harvest. The ice storm may be to blame.

Dorothy Mayfield and Preston Pearson rely on the Senior Pak program for up to 22 pounds of groceries from Community Harvest. They say, they havn't seen any for the past three weeks.

Jane Avery, Community Harvest Executive Director, says some people may have fallen through the cracks when the December ice storm hit. Since the Senior Pak program runs solely on volunteers, icy conditions may have kept some volunteers off the roads.

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Delivery Delay

Updated: Wednesday, 07 Jan 2009, 9:29 AM EST
Published : Tuesday, 06 Jan 2009, 5:26 PM EST

  • Aishah Hasnie

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - Over 900 limited income senior citizens count on Community Harvest for their groceries. But for the past three weeks, a few have seen their grocery bags disappear.

"With older people who are on a limited budget and yes they might get their food stamp," says Dorothy Mayfield, a senior citizen living in Fort Wayne. "Sometimes even that isn't enough."

To try and fill in those gaps, Community Harvest started the Senior Pak program. It sends up to 22 pounds of food to 930 seniors every two weeks. Mayfield and her boyfriend Preston Pearson have been using the service for almost two years... until those groceries just stopped.

"Last week and two weeks before that, he didn't get it. When we called they said we delivered it but they weren't home," says Mayfield. "A couple other friends that I have, right here in the neighborhood, didn't get theirs either."

So News Channel 15 contacted Community Harvest to find out what was going on.

"There is such a dedicated relationship between the driver and the senior pack person," says Jane Avery, executive director of Community Harvest. "So I can only assume that something truly extrodinary happened."

And it was extrodinary: an ice storm that froze life in Fort Wayne.

"The last two weeks very pretty incredible in terms of ice storm, the power outages, with phones being out, with senior pack drivers. It was a very atypical time, not to mention throwing in the holidays thrown into all that mix."

Avery also emphasizes that the service is volunteer driven.

"We have one paid staff person for this program of 930."

Mayfield and Pearson say they understand that weather can get in the way.

"I (just) don't understand why Community Harvest would all of a sudden stop and not say anything. And just wondering if they could kinda let us know ahead of time."

Jane Avery told News Channel 15 that they are working on finding out exactly what happened. She also added that under her watch, she'll make sure this doesn't happen again.

Any senior who happened to miss his/her delivery, should see a bag of groceries on their door step as early as this week.

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