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PUBLIC HEALTH
It has also inspired a search for creative solutions. Since 2013, one approach to helping beach-region seniors age in place data-driven volunteerism as modeled by the Greater Lewes Community Village. Better known to locals simply as the dedicated to helping older adults live independently. Its 120 volunteers and two paid employees currently provide a range of support services and programs to 192 members.
TRANSPORTATION AND OTHER KEY SERVICES
While some of its volunteers and 12 board members have strong backgrounds care organization. Nevertheless, among seniors who need assistance in order to live independently, many daily activities are closely tied to health and well-being. Member Ruth Meell, for instance, moved into a new two-story home in the Lewes area in 2015. Just four days later, she fell and broke her hip. “From my hospital bed I asked my son, who lives in Seattle, to
“I was scared to death about being on my own.” Now recovered, she still counts on GLCV not only for transportation, but also for household tasks such as help with electronic devices.1
The Village provides dozens of services to its members, ranging from transportation to household assistance and including friendly visits and conversation;
respite for caregivers; minor repairs
and technology assistance; telephone check-ins and errands. A substantial number of volunteer hours are devoted
to administrative tasks, phone calls,
and data management at the Village’s Volunteers can choose their tasks; many have expertise in such areas as home repairs and computers.
Given its clientele, the majority
of volunteer assignments involve transportation: Of the 4,946 member services provided in 2017, 3,798 — or 77% — were responses to requests for drivers. Of those calls, 1,338 — 35% of requests for transportation, and 27% of
all services — were health-related: doctor and dentist visits, rehabilitation and test appointments. Yet one lesson repeatedly impressed upon the Village’s volunteers is that each member’s situation is distinctive, and that transportation challenges can be much more complex than simply serving the homebound.
Member Stephanie Allman is a case in point. While she relies on Village drivers for longer distances, she walks to many destinations in and around downtown where she is also a volunteer. Many other members do not require transportation
at all. Some, in fact — such as Donna Hutten, who joined the Village in 2016 as both a member and a volunteer — provide it: She has devoted hours to driving other members to appointments, but when she had knee surgery, she turned to other volunteers to walk her dogs.1
LINE OF DEFENSE AGAINST ISOLATION
Sixty-eight of the Village’s clients with full memberships live alone. Whether constrained by physical limits, medical conditions, or geography, such seniors face a common enemy that can pose an
even higher risk to well-being: loneliness. Every health care provider knows its catastrophic ripple effect. An older patient undergoes a traumatic event — loss of
a spouse or partner, a serious illness or fracture, the beginnings of cognitive decline. Social engagement gives way to isolation; isolation breeds depression and inactivity, further eroding cognitive skills and mobility; family support, if any, is stretched to the breaking point. Medical appointments and tests are ignored; recidivism spirals.
“The profound effects of loneliness on health and independence are a critical public health problem,” Dr. Carla
M. Perissinotto, a geriatrician at the University of California, San Francisco, told The New York Times. “It is no longer medically or ethically acceptable to ignore older adults who feel lonely and 2,3 Studies have shown that loneliness is now a stronger predictor
of early death than obesity, and that 60% of health-related outcomes derive from behavioral, socio-economic, and environmental factors directly related to patients’ subjective experience of isolation.4
Here volunteer-based organizations can be extraordinary resources. On a national scale — the Village is one of more than 350 existing or emerging organizations in the loosely bound but mutually supportive Village to Village Network — members report reduced isolation, increased independence, and
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MISSION AND VISION
The Village’s mission is to enhance the lives of its members by helping them to remain at home, healthy, active, and engaged in a variety of social, educational, and cultural activities. Its vision is to nurture a vibrant, responsive community of mutual support — neighbors helping neighbors to age with dignity and autonomy at minimal cost. The growth and expanding reach of the Village, its commitment to responsible service, and its attention to the health, safety, and well-being of its members earned it the 2017 Governor’s Outstanding Volunteer Award.
