SENIOR COMPANIONS: Volunteers give comfort to the homebound

By Deborah Storey | Living 50 PLus

Picture yourself homebound at age 80, with no close friends or local family. Lonely days stretch into uneventful evenings of TV and microwave meals. Every morning starts the same sad routine.

But when a volunteer from the local Senior Companion program shows up at your door with a smile, there’s someone to talk to, share a laugh and maybe even go with for a hamburger.

These people are a “Godsend,” as one senior’s family member put it.

Linda Floyd, 60, has volunteered with Senior Companion since February 2004.

She is the companion for 86-year-old Janice Allison of Decatur, who has Alzheimer’s.

“I just sit with her and make sure she’s good,” said Floyd.

Floyd is able to choose her own hours – 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. four days a week.

“I just sit and talk with her and make sure everything is OK, try to make her feel better about the day. You really can’t communicate, but you just have to have patience,” she said.

Floyd sat with another woman before and likes to “give back,” she said.

“I love this woman I’m with now,” she added.

Floyd’s advice to anyone considering volunteering with the program is direct but filled with compassion.

“I would just tell ’em you’ve got two hands – one to help yourself and one to help others.”

Beth Young, Allison’s daughter, said about Floyd, “I don’t know what we would do without her.”

Young retired to help with her mom’s care. Her brother stays there nights.

“She’s a Godsend to our family,” Young said.

Hiring agency sitters to do this kind of work is “crazy expensive,” she said.

“There’s no way we could afford that.”

Floyd has proven to be “just absolutely amazing. she gives a good listening ear for us, and she helps with my mom,” Young said. “She’s attentive to her. It is an awesome program that’s kind of untapped by a lot of people. I don’t think people realize the service that it does for our community.”

Raymond Ruth, 69, has been a volunteer companion for almost three years.

“My dad died in ’91 and I took care of my mother for 21 years and this is just so natural to me,” he said.

Ruth said he has a lot in common with the person he sits with, Samuel Jones, affectionately calling him “one of a kind.”

Ruth said he enjoys getting involved in the community and “helping other people that can’t help themselves.”

The program director is careful to match the volunteers with the right person needing help.

“She knew Linda would be a good fit for our family,” said Young. “She reads my mother’s feelings really well, even though my mom can’t articulate it.

“She understands her, she’s respectful to her, and she understands the stresses that we have.”

The first thing Linda told Young and her brother was “you need a breath.”

Now, “she’s just a part of our family. We don’t have to pay a cent and we’re getting the quality without the heavy prices.”

Young’s brother, John Allison, is the Morgan County archivist.

“It’s nice to know there’s a friendly person here to make sure mom’s OK,” he said, and offer some respite to his sister during the day.

Senior Companion Director Jasmine Harden said the program is mostly funded through a $283,000 grant from the federal program AmeriCorps Seniors, an amount that has to stretch across Morgan, Lawrence and Cullman counties.

The grant requires a 10% match “that comes from us just basically going and looking for money” through donations and sponsored events.

Volunteers need 24 hours of continuing education training throughout the year.

“Currently we have 30 volunteers and 34 clients,” she said. “A lot of them have been here for a long time.”

The program is her calling, Harden said, and she’s passionate about finding helpers.

“We have to go out into the community and try to scout volunteers for the program. We are constantly putting out flyers and going to different senior centers.”

Roughly 90% of clients are referrals from the North Alabama Regional Council of Governments.

Volunteers must be at least 55.

“Ninety percent of my volunteers are probably 72-plus,” Harden said. “A lot of them used to do caregiving work when they were younger.

“You also may know that with that generation, they’re more of a helpful generation.”

Volunteers do earn a stipend, which is more of a goodwill gesture, really — $4 an hour. If they take their client to a grocery store, the doctor or a thrift store, they get 40 cents a mile.

“Nobody comes to this program because they want to make money,” Harden said.

Recruiting volunteers is a constant challenge and the numbers haven’t been the same since COVID’s peak.

Before the pandemic they had nearly 60 volunteers.

“We struggle to stay at 30,” she said.

Many of the volunteers are close to 80 so they have done it for a while and “they get tired.”

The need, however, is unrelenting.

In Morgan County, 84 people are on the waiting list for a companion. Two are waiting in Cullman County, and 28 in Lawrence County. Almost all of the Morgan County volunteers live in Decatur.

“I say, ‘Hey, a lot of y’all are already going to your friend’s home and sitting with them for a few hours a day chit-chatting and helping them do whatever,” said Harden. “That’s what the program is for. This is a companionship-based program. We are there to keep the person company to make sure they are OK.”

Volunteers work five to 40 hours a week and choose their schedules.

“We do not do anything medical. We do not do any toileting. We don’t do any transferring of people. We do not give any medication or anything like that.”

Harden wants people to know that demands for volunteers will increase in the coming years as the population ages.

“We have to have the volunteers to help the clients. If I don’t have volunteers, we cannot help the community. “

She receives letters from people talking about how the program has changed lives for the better.

“It really does something,” Harden said. “A lot of these people, they either don’t have anybody, or sadly they have family and the family could live down the street, but family’s not doing anything for them.

“These people turn into family.”

As for Floyd, she intends to keep volunteering “until the Lord puts me down.”

“I thank God I can handle it because if I ever get like that, I want somebody to take care of me,” she said.