"Treat People the Way You Want to be Treated - How I Live My Life"

-- Ruth Stevenson

“In the course of their careers, few people are fortunate to be associated with an individual whose personal, professional, and civic accomplishments are without parallel, and who, through mere association, bring out the best in others – Ruth Stevenson is one of those unique human beings.” 
 
– Senator Daniel Boatwright celebrating Ruth’s retirement

Ruth and her grandchildren celebrating her 93rd birthday

Born in 1928 at Highland Hospital, Ruth was the youngest of eight girls. Now 93, Ruth is still living independently in her own home in Oakland, CA. She likes her Meals on Wheels, enjoys playing Candy Crush on her iPad, and loves to talk about the enormous changes she’s seen over the decades.
Ruth is smart and thoughtful and it makes me angry to hear about some of the things she has been through. If she had had the same open doors during her life as others did because of their gender and skin color, she could have easily been a legislator or the CEO of a big company. But Ruth was denied opportunity after opportunity because of racism. After passing her civil service exams, she interviewed 13 times for Alameda County jobs without even a single offer; once an interviewer just looked at her, laughed, and didn’t do the interview because of her skin color. 

Through it all, Ruth persevered, determined to succeed in her goals and career. She realized early on that anger and hate take too much energy, so she instead focused on how to help others. However, she never let instances of racism slide and spoke up despite the societal pressures that tried to stifle the rights of a Black woman to do so. 

I recently had a chance to connect with Ruth and learn about her life. Her generous spirit and absolute strength shine in the memories she shares.

 

LIFE ANNUAL REPORT

We're excited to share with you all some highlights of LIFE ElderCare's work in our latest annual report!

Did you know that LIFE drivers delivered more than 290,000 pounds of food to homebound folks? That's the weight of a blue whale!

But that's not all. We were able to achieve so many impressive milestones this past year while providing support to over 2100 elders in need. Read more.