By Robert Widmann
Somewhere, out there, where the sirens die away in the shadows, hundreds of lives are being lived in lonely rooms, totally without a friendly face or word. They are the frail elderly locked behind closed doors who often depart from us anonymously, alone.
Forty-four years ago, a group of neighbors gathered here in the Village to take on this need, this lack of a friendly human face in the lives of so many of our elderly. The group came to be called Village Visiting Neighbors and would go on, over four decades, to serve several thousand elderly Villagers.
Today, Village Visiting Neighbors, or Visiting Neighbors (VN) as it is now called, serves 447 seniors in the Village and nearby—up to 30th Street—with a friendly visiting program in which caring neighbors volunteer to visit a senior for at least an hour a week. In addition, VN has put in place a shopping and chaperone service whereby volunteers provide caring company to seniors on medical visits and other errands—or for something as simply human as getting a refreshing hairdo or haircut.
Visiting Neighbors has served as a model for comparable programs throughout the City and the nation. Some years ago, VN was studied by a group sent by the Chinese government for the purpose of initiating similar services throughout the country.
In recent years, Visiting Neighbors has added other beneficial services for its seniors. Chief among these is personal health advocacy whereby a representative of VN visits the medical facility and makes himself/herself known as someone vitally concerned with the well-being of the senior under treatment. Escorted trips to botanical gardens, zoos, and aquariums dot the VN calendar; volunteers get to socialize on a regular basis.
So, what is the cost to the senior for these wonderfully invaluable services? Nothing. They’re FREE!
These are the life-enhancing gifts of caring neighbors to neighbors in need that Visiting Neighbors facilitates. And most volunteers and seniors find that this kind of gift works both ways. Volunteers come to develop a warm human connection and, very often, a genuine friendship with seniors—a relationship which one volunteer described as similar to “adopting a grandparent.”
Visiting Neighbors would like to remind you that your precious time could become even more valuable if you give a bit of it to a lonely senior neighbor. That’s VN’s main hope. But if you just don’t have that time to give, then, perhaps, sending along a little money wouldn’t hurt, either. It’s that season. And VN hopes to be sending holiday meals this Thanksgiving and Christmas to all 447 seniors (average age 89) here in the Village.
If you know of a senior trying to get by alone, or someone who needs occasional help or could benefit from friendly visitations, Visiting Neighbors might be able to help. It is important that the senior call Visiting Neighbors to make that request on his/her own behalf.
Give a little of yourself. Contact Visiting Neighbors at VisitingNeighbors.org and click on “Donate”, or call (212) 260-6200. They’ve always depended on the kindness of neighbors—like you.
