Grantee Stories

LifeLong Medical Care

Plaque at Over 60 Health Center, for a matching campaign that equipped ten exam rooms with power tables for patients with limited mobility.

Helping to provide essential services to enable seniors to live at home.

Over 60 Health Center was founded by the Gray Panthers in 1976, bringing community-based health care to Berkeley’s low-income seniors. In its 45 years of serving the Bay Area, and now treating all ages, Lifelong Medical Care has grown to a network of 14 primary care clinics, four dental clinics and many other services. True to its roots, Lifelong has remained a national leader and advocate for innovative services designed to keep even frail seniors independent in the community and out of nursing homes. 

Of all our grantees, GFF’s relationship with Lifelong Medical Care stretches back the longest. In fact, it was Olga Graham herself who helped set up the Victor E. Graham Memorial Fund during the 1980’s, in memory of her husband. The original correspondence in 1988 appears below between Marty Lynch, then Director of Over 60 Health Center and Olga Graham, about their plans for the fund. Since the passing of Olga Graham, the GFF has expanded its programs with Lifelong in keeping with her vision. 

OUR INITIATIVES  

GFF has established two ongoing funds at Lifelong that are available to senior patients at the Over 60 Health Center in Berkeley and the East Oakland Clinic. These funds benefit some of Lifelong’s most vulnerable patients at risk of institutionalization. 

  • The Victor E. Graham Memorial Fund allows Lifelong’s social services team to provide vital medical equipment and transportation services not covered by Medicare but which help ensure patients can remain independent in their homes; 
  • The Graham Respite Care Fund provides in-home care which enables participants’ families to get much needed relief from caregiving demands and assists in keeping patients living at home. 

GFF has also contributed to several special funding drives during the past 15 years: 

  • A matching campaign to equip ten Over 60 Health Center exam rooms with power tables and chairs to increase access for patients with limited mobility  
  • A Graham Dental Fund that covered dental services for low-income patients when the State of California temporarily eliminated adult Medi-Cal dental services. 
  • A pilot demonstration project to launch a mini dental implants service for low-income seniors 

The Graham Family Fund embodies the same values of care, compassion, and community as LifeLong Medical Care through its support of crucial items and services that keep seniors living independently at home for as long as possible.

The Graham Funds have helped hundreds of LifeLong Medical Care patients. Their family’s hearts are wide open.

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Patients’ families provided with respite care by the Graham Respite Care Fund

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Senior patients served by the Victor Graham Memorial Fund

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Exam rooms equipped with electric exam tables

BERKELEY TIMES
BERKELEY TIMESLifeLong provides essential services to older, frail adults
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Dorothy and her mother started a fund named after their father and husband, Victor Graham. These services provide items not covered by Medicare and help keep older and frail adults in their own homes. The other fund is a respite-care service.
LifeLong Medical Care's 2019 Bobby's Award Recipient
LifeLong Medical Care's 2019 Bobby's Award Recipient
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Dorothy Graham, our Bobbie Award winner this year, continues to carry that torch. Ms. Graham worked for more than 30 years as an advocate, planner, and administrator to improve the health care system so that low-income and medically indigent people could receive the care they so desperately need.
30 Years of Making a Difference for Seniors
30 Years of Making a Difference for Seniors
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“My mother, Olga Graham, started a wonderful program for seniors at LifeLong Medical Care in my father Victor E. Graham’s memory, after his death in 1987,” says daughter Dorothy Graham.
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Patient Stories from the Over 60 Health Center Social Services Team

LifeLong Medical Care's Respite Care Program

Learn more about LifeLong Medical Care on their website