71-Year-Old Advocate Still Fighting for Families in Need

For three decades, Dalene Basden has been the person families call when they need help navigating life with special needs children in Lynn, Massachusetts. At 71, facing cancer treatment and her own money troubles, she's still showing up.

Basden works as a program director at Children's Friend and Family Services Clinic, meeting families wherever they need her. That might mean teaching grocery budgeting at the store, checking in at the playground, or volunteering nights at My Brother's Table soup kitchen where many of her clients eat.

She and her husband were doing okay on their combined salaries until recently. Gas costs jumped from $300 to over $600 monthly for their two cars. Chicken replaced beef at their dinner table. Doctor visits for her cancer treatment now mean five trips to Boston next month, each an hour away plus parking fees.

The rising costs hit hard for someone who has always put others first. Basden used to drive clients to job interviews and deliver dinners on her own dime. Now she sometimes has to suggest they ride their bikes instead.

What could break someone else seems to fuel Basden differently. She still bounces around the soup kitchen, following up on job applications with one young man and having gentle talks about commitment with another who missed his volunteer shift. She recently started using a food pantry herself, then kept right on advising her clients about budgeting.

Her adult son with disabilities lives at home with two grandsons. The cancer diagnosis brought good insurance but crushing copays. Yet when she calculated the gas savings from upcoming surgery recovery, she laughed at the dark humor of it all.

Sunny's Take

At an age when most people are retired, and facing challenges that would justify slowing down, Basden treats her work like medicine. She says it's keeping her alive. The young man at the soup kitchen reminds her that she always promises to fix things for people. Her response tells you everything: "Don't I always fix it?"

After the sun sets on another evening at the soup kitchen, Basden heads to meet a family struggling with rent. Today, she says, is not the day to slow down.