Volunteer Serves San Francisco Seniors

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5) ― Five days a week, San Francisco's Institute on Aging's Adult Day Health Center buzzes with visiting seniors. The small building in the Richmond District is a home away from home for more than one hundred people a year. Here they find activities, medical services, and therapy, all under one roof.

"It helps keep a lot of people from going to a nursing home," remarks volunteer Ruth Ann Rosenberg.

Ruth Ann wasn't old enough to be a senior herself when she started helping them. But now, the Adult Day Health Center is named after her for her years of volunteer work.

She says, "I've always felt it's a wonderful thing to help older people -- here I am older myself now! But when I started all this, I was a lot younger."

Ruth was there when the Institute on Aging got its start in 1975. She was instrumental in moving it to its current building, and to this day supports many of its programs.

At her family home, the kitchen wall is covered in awards for her life of public service: tributes from the National Association for the Visually Handicapped, the Jewish Home, the Institute on Aging.

"It gives you a feeling that you are really helping other people, you are giving of yourself," Ruth Ann explains.

And her years of giving started at San Francisco's Mt. Zion Hospital, where she is still a familiar face. Once a month, she works in the hospital gift shop that also bears her name. A fourth generation San Franciscan, Ruth's great-grandparents came during the gold rush, and her connection with Mt. Zion hospital started 79 years ago when she was born there.

"I feel so much a part of that hospital that was the only place for me to go. It never was any question about what hospital I was going to do my volunteer work in; and that's how it started."

Ruth Ann helped at the information desk, funded the first fellowship in opthalmology, and helped with establishing the Adult Day Health Care Program that continues today. And by next year, a new complex will house the program, along with low-income housing and comprehensive services for seniors.

"Her support has been emotional," says Program Director Tracy McCloud. "She's been inspirational, (her support has) been financial and it goes to the goals of our program, which are mostly keeping people independent in the community for as long as possible."

"It just makes me feel I'm doing the right thing by helping people," Ruth Ann adds. "It's important to me."

So for doing the right thing for so many seniors, this week's Jefferson Award in the Bay Area goes to Ruth Ann Rosenberg.

By Kate Kelly

Related Links:

* Institute on Aging

* UCSF Mt. Zion Hospital

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