Faith In Action® National Program Report

A Faith in Action project in Nebraska negotiated the tricky terrain of providing needed help to fiercely independent elders.

The Friendly Visitor project was based in Saline County, a farming community in the southeast part of Nebraska. It is a rural area with towns scattered 10 to 20 miles apart. In recent years, families have moved into towns to work or go to school, often leaving older people alone out in the country with little contact with others.

Assisting Wary Seniors
A survey of older people in the community found that their biggest fear was dying alone. Along with this fear, however, was a strong belief among many elders that any outside help was a welfare program. Based on these findings, the project director started a Friendly Visitor project where volunteers checked on older people living at home.

The project, which took place in 1996 and 1997 and was funded through Faith in Action, Phase 2, was spearheaded by the Saline County Eldercare Coalition, a community-based advisory board whose purpose is to identify and prioritize the needs of frail elderly and develop plans to address those needs. RWJF supported this project through a grant of $25,000 (ID# 028833).

The project reported the following results:

• The project grew from 12 Friendly Visitor volunteers serving 20 older adults at the start of RWJF funding to 30 volunteers serving 42 older adults. More than half of the older adults were visually impaired. Friendly Visitors volunteered more than once a week to pick up their mail, open and read it to them, write letters and pay bills.
  
  Many volunteers provided rides to town for doctor appointments, groceries and medications. Once a month, volunteers put together a basket of donated food and brought it to the elders.
• In the course of their visits, volunteers often learned that the elders were having a difficult time paying for their medications. When this happened, project staff worked with drug companies to obtain free or reduced-rate prescriptions, helping 23 people in this way.

Innovative Funding
The project director and board of directors also discovered novel ways to fund the project after RWJF support ended. The project director and board members figured out the amount of money that they needed to raise and then broke it down by county and town. Board members made presentations in their towns about the program and how it was helping elderly isolated people, while the director spoke to county officials.

In making their case for local support, these Faith in Action representatives talked about both the project's successes and failures. The project secured funding from each community where it provided services.