ANSWERING THE CALL
Alice DiBiase Deakins
Especially for those older than 65 or with underlying health conditions, prescription deliveries were critical, DiBiase Deakins says. About 20 officers have participated in deliveries, including the police chief, but DiBiase Deakins runs the program and makes most deliveries, she says. She dons a mask and gloves and spends up to 10 hours of her off-duty time each week visiting pharmacies and dropping prescriptions safely outside front doors. While she strives for contact-free service, seniors often want to invite her in for tea or give a grateful hug. DiBiase Deakins finds it difficult not to hug back. “When they’re in tears and thanking us up and down and thanking God that we were sent to them today, it’s very touching,” she says. Requests to the department have declined recently, but the department will keep delivering as long as seniors continue to call, DiBiase Deakins adds. “I know it did a lot of good for them, but in turn it did a lot of good for us also,” she says.
ESSENTIAL HEROINES 52
MODERN WOMAN | 2020
PROVIDED BY ALICE DIBIASE DEAKINS
IN AN ERA WHEN “defund the police” is a rallying cry, Officer Alice DiBiase Deakins of the Rockledge, Fla., police department, is moved to tears when senior citizens thank her for personally delivering their medications during the coronavirus pandemic. “It blows my mind how such a small task has such a great reward,” says DiBiase Deakins, 52, a 17-year veteran of the department who created its prescription delivery program in early April to help housebound seniors. Rockledge is a throwback to simpler times, a town where the police department believes that “no call is too small,” DiBiase Deakins says. So, when many seniors called the department saying they were too nervous to leave home to go to the pharmacy during the pandemic, DiBiase Deakins devised a volunteer effort to help. DiBiase Deakins’ mother is 87 and lives on her property, so she empathizes with the nearly 22 percent of Rockledge residents who are senior citizens, according to the 2010 census. Many are from out of state and have no relatives nearby to rely on.