A Marin County couple has been helping seniors avoid starvation for 20 years and has no plans to retire, even though they are older than some of the people they care for.

With 79-year-old Ruth Schwartz at the wheel and her 82-year-old husband Curt Kinkead unloading boxes from their van, they function like a well-oiled machine.

Together they make a difference for about 1,000 people every year.

“The joy for me is that we make life easier for so many people,” said Kinkead.

The couple delivers meals to low-income seniors, people with disabilities and others at the Hamlin Hotel in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood.

They added the site to their distribution route last year in honor of a good friend who worked at the one-room hotel for years but passed away.

Schwartz says the delivery reminds her why she and Kinkead started helping others nearly two decades ago.

“There was this woman who lived alone, had no family in the area, and lived on three potatoes a day,” Schwartz recalled. “We wanted to make sure people like her had enough to eat.”

We first profiled the couple in 2010 during the early years of their nonprofit organization, Respecting Our Elders. The group collects surplus food from grocery stores and farmers’ markets and delivers it to financially challenged people in senior living facilities, churches and community centers in Marin County.

In recent years, weekly “open food days” have also been introduced, where people in Bolinas and San Rafael can pick up their donations themselves.

The couple says they gave away a total of $100 million worth of food.

“We have developed a treatment for a very serious illness that kills thousands of seniors each year. It’s called ‘financial situational depression,'” Kinkead said. “This program provides immediate relief from this condition.”

Kinkead also gets a little relief. For years he volunteered to collect and deliver donations seven days a week. Only recently has he been given a day off.
      
“When I was 80, I decided to slow down a bit,” he laughed.

For the couple, who have been married for 31 years, volunteer work is in many ways a matter close to their hearts.
      
“To function like this, as a partnership, not just because we are husband and wife, but as a partnership that contributes like this, is very, very satisfying,” Schwartz said. “It almost makes me cry.”

“It’s the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Kinkead added.

With no plans to retire, the partners in service and life say they will continue making deliveries. Many of the drivers in the all-volunteer program are older adults who also receive benefits.

Most of the $25,000 operating costs are transportation-related. The nonprofit is asking for additional donations to help pay for high gas prices and maintenance of the delivery trucks.

For more information, visit respectingourelders.org.