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Fed-up officer says ‘enough,’ starts senior outreach

A Lake Mary, Fla. police officer was appalled at what he found when he was dispatched to a home of an elderly mother and daughter pair

CNN.com

LAKE MARY, Fla. — Shortly after joining the Lake Mary Police Department in 2007, Zach Hudson was dispatched to the home of two elderly women. What he saw left him appalled. The two women — a mother in her 90s and a daughter in her 70s — had no food and no electricity.

Each month, they alternated what they spent their small amount of money on: One month it would be medicine, the next it would be food and bills. In his 10 years as a Florida police officer, Hudson had witnessed countless senior citizens in tragic circumstances. But this was the last straw for him. “I’d had enough,” he said. “And I realized that something had to be done. And that’s when I started to conceptualize the Seniors Intervention Group.”

Since 2009, Hudson’s group has tended to the basic needs of nearly 1,000 seniors in Seminole County, Florida. With the help of hundreds of local volunteers, seniors are provided with essential assistance such as food, money, transportation, vehicle maintenance and help around the house.

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