Osmonds volunteer to cheer needy

Last week, Donny Osmond hurt his back when he fell off a platform backstage at the Flamingo. But here he is on Saturday, picking up heavy boxes of charity food and walking them into senior citizens' apartments, without complaint.

"Good morning Joe!," Donny, 52, beams at Joe Dattilo, a retired banker scheduled for internal surgery this week. "How would you like a bunch of food?"

This is at Louise Shell Senior Apartments on North Martin Luther King Boulevard. Donny and Marie are delivering boxes containing 35 meals each, on behalf of City Mission of Las Vegas.

There is no pity here for seniors in need. Donny and Marie spend two hours in dozens of clean apartments, celebrating each senior's life, smiling, hugging, holding hands and asking about their families, their careers and their lives.

The only tears are Marie's when she meets Barbara Wilson.

At first, their meeting is all laughs. Donny strikes a somewhat suggestive dancing pose with Barbara as if he's still on "Dancing With the Stars," which he just won.

"Ohhh, my God!" Barbara exclaims.

Barbara tells them she used to nurse and now gets frustrated when she goes to the hospital and can't do for others what others now do for her.

Barbara has pictures everywhere of family, kids, grandkids, great-grandkids and brothers who died in war.

Suddenly, Marie, 50, is floored by emotions. She picks up a plant from Barbara's kitchen table.

"This was my mom's favorite flower. The Christmas cactus," Marie says.

She can't take her eyes off it.

Once Marie gets outside Barbara's door, she cries without relief. Donny and Marie's parents lived in a retirement home before they died. Marie is now thinking so hard about her mom and how she misses her.

But Donny and Marie have a job to do. They merrily knock on the door of a retired security officer with a fractured hip. Her name is Veronica Lake, she's dressed to the nines at noon, and she carries a cane she calls "the rod of correction." Marie tells Veronica how cute Veronica's neighbor, Barbara, is.

"Let me tell you something," Veronica says. "In this building, we have cute people!"

Marie is still crying a little. In the hallway, she turns serious with me.

"They get about $600 in Social Security. One of three seniors lives on Social Security. So after they pay for their medicines, they're done!" she says.

"Social Security is not keeping up" with increases in costs of living. "That is so not cool!"

Seniors in this building qualify easily for help from City Mission by living on fixed incomes. Across Las Vegas, City Mission (which gets no government money but exists on donations) delivers about 100 to 125 boxes of food, plus 30 emergency packages, each month. Boxes contain a variety, from cereal to potatoes, soup, deserts and orange juice.

City Mission does all that with two staffers plus volunteers, says Jackie Davis, the charity's director.

"God just blesses us and helps us do mighty things," Jackie says.

"People that were once donors are now saying, 'We've given as much as we could. Now we've lost our jobs. Can you help us with a food box?'" Jackie says. "That's heart wrenching."

Other Vegas celebrities help City Mission. The late Danny Gans used to donate. Mayor Oscar Goodman has helped. So has Wayne Newton.

But Donny and Marie signed up to deliver by hand.

So they meet Betty Mullica, Randolph Foley, Rodrigo Corpis, Mamie McLemore, Ruthie Bradford, Nancy Bolden, Mary Boyer and many others.

They meet Charlotte Washington, a retired educator who herself is collecting donations for military personnel. And they meet Mary Anne Gasparro, who knits hats for homeless people. In other words, Donny and Marie are helping people who help people.

Hours later, Donny and Marie run out of boxes, but they can hardly be dragged out by publicists who need to get them somewhere else. They simply do not want to go.

"It's a little uncomfortable to have (media) coverage, like, 'Oh we're getting coverage for this?'" Donny tells me. "But the reason why that doesn't bother me is it shows people how important it is to do this stuff, to volunteer.

"It's an unselfish act, and that's what makes you feel good about yourself -- the volunteerism, the sacrifice, charitable work."

Today, in fact, he's planning to take his kids and wife to the Utah retirement home where his parents lived.

And Marie, who has been known to visit children's hospitals for seven hours at a stretch without media, tells me about kids she has met, babies with cancer and children with AIDS or recovering from accidents.

It would all be so heartbreaking to hear, except Marie and Donny soldier on, jolly elves, trying to brighten a day with their famous Mormon sunshine.

It's not always easy, of course. Marie and I talk about Barbara, the senior who struck a dancing pose with Donny. Marie says Barbara's family photos and Christmas cactus jolted her with memories of her mom, Olive, who graced her with charity, and died on Mother's Day five years ago.

"I just felt my mom," Marie says, weeping. "This is what she taught me to do."

And once more, as always, her mom lives on in her heart.

Doug Elfman's column appears on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Contact him at 383-0391 or e-mail him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He also blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.