You’ve seen seniors lined up outside grocery stores in the morning, waiting their turn to enter and shop during store-designated times for the 65-over age group — the ones deemed the highest risk of being infected with the novel coronavirus and becoming seriously ill.
Daniel Goldberg, a junior student athlete at San Marcos High and the youngest son of an emergency room doctor at Cottage Hospital, came up with an idea so those of the Baby Boomer generation can avoid the markets by reaching out to “Zoomers” (members of Generation Z, those born in the late 1990s and early 2000s) to do their shopping.
Goldberg created ZoomerstoBoomers.com, an online site where seniors can submit a grocery list and a staff of high schoolers will head out to do the shopping and deliver to their homes.
“Every senior we deliver to is super, super happy and grateful, and beaming with joy when we show up,” said Goldberg, who came up with the idea during the extended school closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The first week off school I was just spending time with siblings, and I was trying to follow all the regulations of isolate at home, don’t go out and spread anything around,” he said while on a break from delivering. “I felt I wasn’t helping when there was help that was needed.”
“I saw my dad (Dr. Brian Goldberg) going into work at the ER every day and he was putting himself out on the front line. I was just siting at home twiddling my thumbs. I was like: ‘There has to be something I can do to try help out in the community.’ I started thinking and brainstorming on how I can help.”
Thus, Zoomers to Boomers was born.
The name, which he came up with while doing the DIY mockup of the website, stuck after realizing his group of Zoomers was serving Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964).
“I used that as an original name and I decided it works,” he said.
Just as he attacks the goal as a water polo player for San Marcos, Goldberg was relentless in carrying out his idea.
He learned how to build a website and recruited friends to help do the shopping and deliveries.
As of Tuesday, he had a staff of 13, all high school underclassmen, and many of them student athletes.
“All these people are people I’m comfortable asking, ‘Do you want to help?’” he said. “They’re friends from school and water polo, people I know.”
Now that the business is up and running, more people are offering to volunteer.
“I’m going to try to grow the team a little more,” he said.
The operation works this way:
» Customers click the red “order here” tab on the site and fill out a form and make their grocery list.
“They answer all the information we need and we send a driver out and we’ll have (the grocery) order to them by the next morning,” he said. “For the non-tech savvy, they can send me an email. I can call a couple of people and make the delivery.”
» The drivers visit various stores and requested outlets to fill the orders.
» The delivery person will call or text the customer after all the purchases are made and inform them of the bill total and estimated time of delivery.
» Payment is by cash, check or Venmo (an online and phone application that debits from a bank account).
Goldberg added that he also accepts requests from third parties to deliver to elderly family members and home-bound people who are caring for children or other family members whose immune systems are compromised.
They’ll make deliveries from Goleta to Carpinteria.
“We go to grocery stores and do our best to get everything they ask for,” Goldberg said.
He said the size of the grocery lists have varied between $40 to $80 for the first couple days of operation. On Monday, he handled “a five-page long list in 12-point type font.”
They handled 50 orders on Tuesday.
Zoomers to Boomers also handles deliveries for Gladden & Sons Produce in Goleta.
The service operates Monday through Saturday.
The team has sanitation rules it must follow on each delivery, including wearing an N95 mask and gloves.
There are no tips or additional payments necessary. Goldberg said any tips included by customers will be donated to those in need in the Santa Barbara community.
— Noozhawk sports editor Barry Punzal can be reached at bpunzal@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk Sports on Twitter: @NoozhawkSports. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.