Orlando Sentinel Family Fund: Council on Aging helps Osceola family with giving spirit

December 7, 2012

|By David Breen, Orlando Sentinel

When Gabrielle Beaman was born, doctors said she would live only to be 6 years old. Now 12, she's proving them wrong every day. But it has been a struggle. Gabby suffers from cerebral palsy, epilepsy and several other disorders. She has to wear a helmet in case of seizures, and leg braces for her clubbed feet. Occasionally she walks but for the most part is wheelchair-bound. She depends on her mom Amber Dibble, 32, and her mom's boyfriend, William Hubbard, 54, for help. The family, who live in Kissimmee, had been getting by on Dibble's and Gabrielle's disability payments, and Hubbard's income from a truck-driving job. But 2012 has dealt them one blow after another. In January, heart trouble forced Hubbard to stop working. He'll eventually require heart surgery. This fall, Dibble passed out from a stress-related episode. Gabby called 911, and Dibble had to be revived with shock paddles. Doctors said her brain needed to reboot itself. She has short-term memory problems and gets lost occasionally while driving. "This whole year has been a nightmare for us," Hubbard said. "The Council on Aging has been great for us, foodwise and for moral support."

The Osceola Council on Aging is among dozens of nonprofit groups supported by the Orlando Sentinel Family Fund Holiday Campaign. Despite its name, the council, which was founded in 1971, doesn't limit its services to the elderly."Our focus is on families facing poverty," said Warren Hoagland, the organization's services director. "We have a lot of working poor that come to the Council on Aging in need. It's nice to be able to provide services for a whole family."

Among other services, Gabby's family is receiving help from the council's new mobile food pantry. The program uses a van specially equipped with a warming oven on one side and a refrigerator on the other to deliver healthy food to those who might have a hard time getting to the council's food pantry. Unlike a single-serving Meals on Wheels program, the mobile food pantry delivers a month's worth of food in one visit. Since the program's start in March, about 400 families have received deliveries. A big part of the concept is to get food-pantry clients to start eating better.

"We want to be able to take farm-fresh food out to people that are homebound," said Council on Aging CEO Bev Hoagland, "A lot of them don't have transportation or have limited transportation, or have someone in their family that is disabled." Given their financial straits and the time spent shuttling Gabby to therapy and other medical appointments in Orlando, Tampa and Lake Nona, the mobile food pantry has been a huge help for Dibble and Hubbard. "We've met so many wonderful people who've helped us," Dibble said. Despite the constant worry brought on by their circumstances, the family retains a generous spirit. Dibble has rescued a pair of stray cats, and the family took in a mockingbird that kept falling from a tree in the backyard. Gabby delights in searching out bugs to feed the bird, which they've named Tipsy.