- [Eden] I think a lot of people don't know
about the severity of the food insecurity in Philly.
20 percent of Philadelphians face some form
of food insecurity and we're actually living
in the 10th hungriest county in the country.
(bouncy piano music)
My name is Eden Engel-Rebitzer.
I am a research year out student
at the Perelman School of Medicine at Penn
and I'm working on a program called One Extra Bag.
One Extra Bag is a program
where medical student volunteers deliver groceries
to geriatric home bound patients.
- Hey Ms. Jones. - Hi, hi.
- Here's this week's. - Oh thank you so much.
- [Eden] These are older adults that are kind of stuck
at home for various reasons that were really
in need of groceries and had lost access
to groceries because of the COVID pandemic.
- At the time that this came along,
I really didn't need somebody to shop for me
and when I got the call and I was told what was happening,
I couldn't believe it
and I was so happy.
- [Eden] We wanted to get started really quickly
once we'd identified this as a big need.
- And so we had to think
about how are we going to fund this initiative
and Eden did an amazing job raising charitable funds,
providing the food for this project.
- [Eden] We decided to start a gofundme campaign.
We've raised almost 10, 000 dollars via that campaign
and that bought us some time to apply
for several small grants that we've gotten since then.
Penn CAREs' grant was really exciting for us
because it meant that we could intake an
additional seven to ten households
that would not have been able
to receive our services otherwise.
- Hi Ms. Jones. How are you?
The person that I was assigned
is a lovely older lady named Evelyn Jones.
And milk again as usual?
I call her every Monday to see how things are going
and to get her grocery list for the week.
Sounds good. (lighthearted guitar music)
- [Eden] So one of the really important safety protocols
that we put in place was that medical students were
only delivering groceries
to their paired older adult that they purchased
when they were already going grocery shopping
hence the name One Extra Bag.
And that was really important
because it meant that we weren't risking
additional exposure to the medical students
and that we also weren't creating networks potentially
of spread by having folks deliver
to lots of different people every week.
- I do my shopping and then I do my one extra bag
for Ms. Jones and drop it off right
to her front step on the day that we decide.
( slow piano music) (lighthearted guitar music)
I got the corn this week. - Good.
- It's looking pretty good.
I definitely think the one to one model of One Extra Bag,
it feels extremely personal and Ms. Jones
is a really sweet lady
and one of the first things I discovered
about her was that
our birthdays are half a year apart exactly.
And I need to remember that
because I need to send her something.
(cackles)
- Oh that's beautiful.
Thank you so much.
I think he's wonderful.
I couldn't wait each week for him to call me
and give him my long list and he brought it back,
everything was perfect.
- [Cindy] Probably one of the most important benefits
of this program is not really the food
but it's also the connection of our students
with home bound patients who are often isolated and alone.
- And it was such a pleasure
but every time he came to the door,
it (chuckles) brighten me up.
( laughs joyfully)
- Till next week. - Okay. All right.
I'll be waiting.
- [Eden] We've had a lot of energy to kind of be youthful
and it's felt really good to find a way
to kind of plug that energy into a project that's helping.
(lighthearted guitar music)