Making a Difference Together

There is something very self-absorbed about the caregiver to senior citizen relationship.  By that, we mean that most if not all of the decisions you make and subjects of concern focus either on the senior citizen and her needs or on the caregiver and the senior citizen and how you will work together to address his needs. 

It is small wonder then when we think about what your elderly parent talked about all day, it’s usually all about his or her physical or emotional needs.  The way the caregiver relationship works naturally encourages the idea that the senior citizen's world revolves around the needs and issues of the senior citizen herself.

But we know from raising children that if a person is completely focused on themselves, that is very unhealthy.  That is how one can become a hypochondriac and become overwhelmed by obsessive-compulsive habits because they think everything must begin and end with their problems and there is no chance to see the world or get some perspective by being with other people.

So, a bold step you as a caregiver can do is to suggest that you and your elderly parent get out of the apartment or home, and do something of value to others.  By getting involved in volunteering or at least going out and making a difference together, you provide a way for your elderly parent to get some self-esteem from making someone else’s life better.  It gives them chance to get out in the fresh air and break up the constant thoughts about themselves by thinking about someone else or something else for a while.

At first, you may get some resistance to the idea and you may have to be downright stubborn about giving it a try.  The knee-jerk reaction that your elderly parent may have when you bring up volunteering together might be, “what does that have to do with my needs?”  By explaining the value to him or her, you can help your elderly parent remember that life was better when it was about others and that a life of service is a healthy life.

You don’t have to get really ambitious to find something good to do with your energies.  And if your senior mom or dad is disabled, there are still things you can do.  Some simple things you can do at first that gets the ball rolling are…

· Go to the park and pick up trash on a slow walk so you make the park a prettier place.

· Go visit someone else in the retirement community that he or she knows is lonely and would enjoy being dropped in on.

· Help stuff envelopes or make phone calls on behalf of your church or a charity organization.  This is something you can do from a wheelchair if that is the situation with your elderly parent.

· Read to disadvantaged kids at the local library.

· Become a big brother or big sister and take a young person to a ball game or to the zoo every so often.

Most cities have a volunteer coordination agency that can match up your physical abilities with volunteer opportunities.  Once you get your elderly parent involved in doing something for others, don’t be surprised if their enthusiasm takes off like a skyrocket. 

The great feeling of making a difference for others can literally turn his or her life around.  And on the way home, as your parent chatters about the people you met and the things you are doing, you know that this idea was a hit.  And when they can’t stop talking about the next thing you are going to go do together, you will know that your parent has gotten the bug for service projects.  And his or her life will never be the same again. And that’s a good thing.

HARVEY RECOVERY: 5 WAYS YOU CAN HELP

The following is taken from Senior Planet and I think there are some important ideas below.

During the desperate days of flooding in Texas last week, much of the rescue effort was organized and carried out by regular citizens, many of them far from Houston, using simple digital tools. Official emergency phone lines were backed up, so Twitter became the place to cry for help—and across the country, people found ways to amplify and act on those tweets. A small group dubbed @HarveyRescue created an open database—a simple Google spreadsheet—and via social media mobilized an army of remote volunteers to enter details from the SOS messages that Texans were tweeting. Other volunteers helped to create a rescue map using the data in that spreadsheet. And those with access to boats used the online map, along with an app-based walkie-talkie system, to find folks who were trapped in their homes with the waters rising.

Now the recovery effort has started, and regular people are pitching in again. You may already have donated (see here for local, on-the-ground organizations that are funneling 100% of received funds to those in need). But there’s more you can do—including help with phase two of @HarveyRescue.

1. Use the Amazon Wishlist

Lysol disinfectant, large plastic totes, fruit leather—these are some of the items currently needed at shelters around the Houston area and for clean-up. To help with the logistics of getting the items to where they’re needed, the Red Cross and Amazon have created a wishlist. All you have to do is select one or more items, place them in your cart and check out. Amazon will deliver what you’ve bought directly to an operational center. The list is a work in progress, so you can check back frequently.

Click here to donate items via Amazon

2. Open Your Home

AirBnB is making it easy for people in areas of Texas and Louisiana to offer temporary shelter to evacuees—just a room or a whole home. The site is waiving service fees for anyone checking in by September 25 and has created a simple page with two buttons: I Need a Place to Stay and I Can Offer My Place for Free. More than 500 people have already posted their offers.

Click here to see which areas are covered. You’ll have to create an AirBnB account to get started.

3. Verify Information with @HarveyRecovery

If you have some spare time, you can make phone calls to verify the accuracy of information that’s being collected about available shelters, food distribution centers, hospitals, crisis lines and other resources for people who’ve been affected by Hurricane Harvey. The list is being created by @HarveyRelief—formerly known as @HarveyRescue, the group that created the open database during the flood. Like that spreadsheet, this list is open to anyone who has information to add, so your job is to make sure the info is correct before it’s mapped by other volunteers. The map is available to anyone who needs help.

Click here to access the list and read instructions. Note that you’ll need to know how to highlight text (it’s easy if you ask someone).

4. Use Aerial Images to Plot Damage

The catastrophic flooding in Texas downed bridges, flooded homes, blocked roads and created large piles of trash over a large area. Before the damage can be fixed, it has to be mapped. If you’re computer savvy and have a good eye, that’s where you come in. Tomnod is a crowdsourcing site that helps in post-disaster situations by presenting satellite imagery and relying on thousands of people around the world to search those images for specific signs. You’ll be shown what to look for; when you see it, you tag it using your mouse and keyboard. Then you move on to another square in the satellite image grid.

Click here to access Tomnod for Harvey

5. Be a FEMA Reservist

If you’re able to travel and have experience in any of a number of specialized occupations (for example: customer service, media relations, insurance, data entry) consider this on-call opportunity to help. FEMA will train you and call you when your services are needed on the ground in Houston; some tasks may be remote. This is a paid gig.

Click here for more information

If you know of other ways to help, please add them in the comments section below.

Thoughts on Volunteering in my age group

Contributing time service expertise knowledge prestige or personal connection for a mutually agreed upon time directly or indirectly for the benefit of individual known or unknown alike, for organization, foundation, society, community and /or the environment.  

Volunteerism benefits both society at large and the individual volunteer by strengthening trust, solidarity, and reciprocity among citizens and by purposefully creating opportunities for participation.

I am proud of where I live, in BC the citizens of British Colombian Volunteer a great deal of time and energy.

One in every 4 is a volunteer, BC citizens volunteer more than other Canadians, and my age group BC seniors volunteer a lot! 

Seniors as seen as Super Volunteers these are the small proportion of volunteers who donate large amounts of time and they are usually  older adults -many in their 70’s.

Why Seniors Volunteer

• ·        To regain a meaningful identity
• ·        To fill a vocational void
• ·        To address a moral obligation
• ·        To support socially worthwhile causes
• ·        To feel a useful member of society
• ·        To find a peer group
• ·        To overcome a loss
• ·        To fulfill leisure time with meaningful activity
• ·        To make use of skills and abilities 

Seniors prefer volunteer work that meets their needs work that is engaging, episodic, flexible and provides an opportunity for creativity, and autonomy. We volunteer to influence, or to use special skills that leave an impact, and work that is productive, and is mission linked.

Where do seniors volunteer?

Informally and directly In voluntary, non-profit organizations in Canada where thousands of volunteers help them to fulfill their missions 11% of all non-profit organizations served elderly people. (2003)   to support “active aging” among peers healthy eating Physical activity Tobacco cessation Fall prevention Social connectedness

I volunteer with the COSCO Health and Wellness Institute and have been doing this for about a year, we had workshops last year that provided information on the previous points to over 25,000 seniors. COSCO Health and Wellness is a non-profit which only has volunteers. Our motto is Seniors helping Seniors.

Try volunteering it is fun and it keeps you young!

What do you Volunteer for?

Boomers are involved in their community and give of themselves. A volunteer organization did a survey to find out in what areas people volunteer. Here is what they found out. I volunteer in Community Service and Seniors organizations. Where do you fit?

Being involved

I am involved in SHARE Family & Community Services Society is a non- profit, independent, community based agency providing leadership and programs in response to the social needs of the residents of the Tri-Cities (Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Anmore and Belcarra) and adjacent communities. At this time of the year we start thinking about Xmas in July promotion for the food bank, so I would urge all of you to get involved and support the Food Bank in your community. I would also urge you to consider volunteering.

 Jeremy Rifkin in a presentation abridged on YouTube takes the position that people are empathic and that we should be moving to a more empathic civilization. Interesting viewing, but if we are to move in this direction, we need people to pay attention to their own communities and start to show they care by volunteering. Start volunteering today, your life will be more meaningful to you and to others.