December 17, 2003

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Palo Alto Online

Outpouring of support for homeless grandma

by Sue Dremann

The community has begun a campaign to help get 80-year-old homeless grandmother Elaine Gondring off the streets and into a retirement community.

The retired Patterson school teacher who worked to educate some of the most marginalized children in society became homeless after paying off the balance of her medical debts rather than filing for bankruptcy, according to Gondring's daughter.

Moved by the Weekly's column about Gondring's plight (Our Town, Dec. 3), readers have donated cash, checks and offered temporary housing in their homes to Palo Alto's homeless grandma.

Palo Altan Carol Zink, a history teacher at Pinewood School in Los Altos Hills, sprang into action after reading the Weekly story.

"I started crying over my toast and coffee. I felt this is so wrong. It should not happen. How did our safety net get so shredded? She served the most marginalized in education. It seemed so terribly unjust," Zink said.

"First I got sad, then angry. I stomped off to school and whipped out the article and read it in all of my classes."

The history teacher was determined to help turn Gondring's fortunes around. She teaches her students a class called "The Universe of Obligation." Although taught in the context of the Holocaust, the lessons are meant to be applied to everyday life, she said.

"In the universe of obligation, we have people for whom we feel responsible -- friends, family. How can we expand that to include other people we don't know? In times of crisis, we contract. What is it that causes us to contract? How can we keep (the sense of social obligation) wider and open?"

Zink put an envelope on her desk at school. She asked her students if they could give up a latte this week and donate to Gondring's cause.

Students dug down into their pockets. One boy handed over $10 -- his lunch money for a week, she said.

Zink also e-mailed the column to school staff members.

"I know that Christmas is a tough time," she wrote, but she hoped they could spare a few dollars to help out one of their own. She then taped an envelope to her school mailbox labeled "For the homeless teacher" for donations.

"If every teacher in Palo Alto public and private schools were to give just $10, this would be enough to get Ms. Gondring set up in an apartment where she deserves to be," Zink wrote the Weekly.

She collected $736 from teachers, students and church choir members to help Gondring.

"There -- but for the grace of God," another Palo Alto couple wrote on their check donation sent to the Weekly.

Kelly, an out-of-town shopper who frequents Palo Alto, has given Gondring donations in the past. "She's always so gracious," she said. On Saturday, Kelly brought Gondring lunch as the tiny octogenarian held her sign and plastic donations cup on a downtown street corner.

The journey has been arduous for Gondring and her daughter, who has disrupted her own life over and over to care for her mother after each fall and illness. She's been fighting with a dilemma common to adult children of aging parents -- how one gracefully and effectively begins to ease a parent away from independence, when it is apparent they can no longer remain on their own.

The women will stay in Palo Alto long enough to straighten out Gondring's finances, and find a retirement home in Texas where Gondring will live. Getting her there will be difficult -- caring for her mother stretched the daughter's resources to the breaking point.

Gondring and her daughter are grateful for the community support.

"People have been so nice here, I'm going to be sorry to leave you," Gondring said. It's a difficult decision. "I'm a Californian," she whispered to Zink over hot cocoa at Peninsula Creamery.

With Zink's help, the Weekly is keeping a fund for Gondring, which will be applied to getting her established in a retirement community in Texas. Donations can be sent to Elaine Gondring in care of Sue Dremann at the Weekly.

Sue Dremann can be e-mailed at sdremann@weekly.com

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