The final client of the day was Darlene Smith, who was waiting on her porch with her cat, Maurice, when the lieutenants pulled up. “Oh, I really appreciate this,” said Ms. Smith, before asking them to put the box on a chair outside the sliding glass door. She disinfects everything that comes into her house.
“With so many places closing, my support system has completely shut down,” she said. “They relieved all that. I don’t have to go out as much, and I can depend on them just to be there.” She paused to pet Maurice. “They are my first responders,” she said.
Although Ms. Smith has asthma, an autoimmune disorder and limited mobility, she would zip around town on a red motorized scooter before the crisis, ringing a Salvation Army bell to ask for donations and picking up her own medications at the drugstore. Now, even her independence is not worth the risk. “I’m risking my health every time I go out,” she said. “Life can be snuffed in a moment.”
So she stays inside with Maurice, whose snoring is a comfort in the long nights alone. But although she is inside, she is not idle. Before Easter, she helped assemble baskets of candy that the Salvation Army distributed to families with children.
She makes herself meals from what the Salvation Army provides. “The box provides everything I need,” she said, “but they give the added support, the love, the confidence for me to just go another day. There’s a lot of love in that box.”
Lt. Smouse, who had run around the corner to pick up cookies made by another senior who helped make the Easter baskets, stood in the rain, the box resting on her hip.