Oldtimers Foundation

Our Mission:

The Oldtimers Foundation is a private non-profit 501(c)3 social service agency founded in 1964. Our Mission is to maintain and improve the physical, psychological and social well being of residents in Southeast Los Angeles County and San Bernardino County.

Oldtimers Foundation is a multi-purpose community-based organization providing a wide range of social services to residents of southeast Los Angeles County.

Oldtimers was estabished in 1954 with the purpose of maintaining and improving the psychological and social well-being of older persons in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties through varied,comprehensive and coordinated programs, but now provides food, transit and services to seniors across southeast L.A. County.

Oldtimers' purpose has been the enhancement, growth, and welfare of all clients walking through our doors. We are an organization dedicated to helping residents recognize and resolve individual, family, and community problems that inhibit their personal growth.

Clients Have Changed, but Needs Haven't

Oldtimers Foundation had served southeast Los Angeles County less than 10 years when its mission to help retired union workers already seemed outdated.

It was the mid-1980's. Most mayor industries had abandoned the area.

Hundreds of thousands of union workers, looking for new jobs, had left for the suburbs. And the region was becoming a gateway for poor Latino immigrants.

But the organization founded by steelworkers stayed on.

"We had a new [kind of] senior citizen coming into the area, and they had even greater needs," said George Cole, the foundation's executive director and a former mechanic at the Bethlehem Steel Plant in Huntington Park before it closed in 1983.

Today the organization is one of the southeast area's leading community nonprofits, a part-volunter effort that provides food, transit, and other services for seniors. Operating with a $ 5-million budget, it also builds low-cost housing, puts on health fairs and offers computer classes.

In all, the organization serves 600,000 meals per year in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties.

In the southeast county, workers serve 950 meals every day at senior citizen centers from ranging Bell to Lynwood. An additional 450 meals are delivered directly to homes of disabled seniors.