Homebound Seniors Get Help Feeding Pets

By Alexandra Tweten, 7/01/2010

After volunteering for the first time at St. Vincent Meals on Wheels, Bebe Flynn found out that 80 percent of seniors with pets share their meals with them because they can’t afford pet food. Since then, the animal and baking enthusiast set out to do something about it.

"I was so incensed that I got out my mixer and I made a couple batches of cookies," said Flynn, 52, a casting director from Hancock Park. That’s when Miss Lilly’s Trading Company was born, named after her rescue dog.

 Flynn developed a line of handmade gourmet cookies that she sells with 10 percent of the profit going to benefit seniors’ pets, so that both the owners and their companions could eat nutritious food.

"The majority of them feed their meals to their pets, so the pets aren’t nourished and that elderly person is not nourished either," Flynn said.

Daryl Twerdahl, director of the St. Vincent Meals on Wheels program, introduced Flynn to the charity when the two played tennis together.

Twerdahl described Flynn as "enthusiastic and energetic," and added, "when she makes up her mind, you’d better not tell her ‘no.’"

Flynn was inspired by that enthusiasm, and after baking batches of brownies and chocolate chip cookies, she took her creations to Whole Foods Market and demanded to talk to the people in charge.

"The next thing you know, I’m sitting with the team leader, and bakers and taste testers, and I’m telling them what I want to do, and they were like, ‘great,’" Flynn said.

The Chocolate Chip Oat Pecan, Double Dark Chocolate, Lilly Oats and Butter Bones cookies are now sold at three Whole Foods locations in the Los Angeles area, as well as at the Meals on Wheels roving Cart with a Cause, and at Larchmont Wine and Cheese. Each batch of cookies is made in a professional kitchen in Culver City.

Flynn said she learned the importance of the relationship between seniors and their pets from watching her parents. After their children grew up, their dogs became a big part of their lives, and now after her father’s death, her mother takes pleasure in caring for her cats.

“Oftentimes in these situations, pets are the sole companions of this elderly person, and that pet becomes the focus of their life. For a lot of people, it keeps them alive,” Flynn said. “I met one woman who had a 19-year-old cat. If that cat goes, I really doubt she’s going to survive.”

The need for help at St. Vincent Meals on Wheels is growing since approximately 4,700 people receive meals daily, and approximately 50 percent of recipients have pets. St. Vincent is the second largest Meals on Wheels program in the country.

Starting in the fall, Meals on Wheels will provide pet food and veterinary care, along with meals for those who are homebound and unable to cook and shop.

The new program will be completely volunteer-based, with no staff involvement, Twerdahl said.

Beginning with serving a small section of the city, Flynn said she hopes to expand the program to reach the rest of Los Angeles.

Flynn is also working to get more Whole Foods stores to carry the line and spread her products to the rest of the country. Vegan and gluten-free lines are in the works.

“As I go state to state, that state will benefit from that program,” Flynn said of her ambitious goal to enlarge the charity base.

Flynn’s enthusiasm for animals continues in all facets of her life, as she personally rescues many animals. After seeing a pregnant dog at the veterinarian’s parking lot being taken to the pound, Flynn decided to take it home and care for the dog and her six puppies, bringing the count at her house to 11 dogs and five cats.

“It’s so impressive for someone to actually say, ‘this is a place I can make a difference and really make it happen,’” Twerdahl said. “It’s the entrepreneurial, can-do, can-make-a-difference, everybody-counts attitude.”