Harvard Help, the local volunteer organization that coordinates rides to doctor appointments for the injured, disabled, and elderly, celebrates 30 years of continuous service to the town this year. Founded by Martin Ring and Carol Rourke, Harvard Help volunteers have delivered hot meals, driven people to medical appointments, and filled in as emergency babysitters in the personal, small-town tradition of neighbor helping neighbor. While the organization now focuses solely on transportation, Harvard Help President Dianne Carter said that it allows people who would not otherwise be able to live independently to stay in their own homes.

“For anybody that needs help, we’re here for them,” she said.

While the tradition of neighbor helping neighbor is hardly new, a group of townspeople gathered in January of 1977 to give some structure to the custom so that no one who needed help would be overlooked as the town continued to grow. In a March 9, 1979 Harvard Post article about Harvard Help written by Ann Levison, the organization’s founding is described as an effort by a number of dedicated individuals with strong support from all three Harvard churches: initial funding came from the offertory gathered an annual ecumenical Thanksgiving service, and volunteers were recruited from each church’s congregation. In the article, Levison gave credit for the formation of Harvard Help to Connie Henry, Molly Eipper, Joy Sylvester, Pat Groeninger, Albert Rantoul, Mickey Rascoe, and Cynthia Giacchetti, as well as Ring and Rourke. The structure of the organization—a president and vice president serving alongside a steering committee—has hardly changed in all that time. At present, Carter, Vice President Pat Edmonds, and their committee of six other members coordinate the efforts of more than 70 volunteers. While the organization has met with the inevitable challenges over the years, including a decline in volunteer availability, Carter is pleased with Harvard Help’s consistent track record of offering help to those in need.

“We are immensely proud that we’ve been able to keep the schedule filled for 30 years,” she said.

Harvard Help operates on a regular schedule Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Volunteers sign up in advance to either answer the phone or act as drivers, usually one day a month. Those who need to schedule a ride to a doctor appointment call police dispatch on the nonemergency line at 978-456-8276, and the dispatch operator relays the request to the Harvard Help volunteer in charge of answering phone calls that day. He or she then coordinates the details of the request with the volunteer driver. Typically, Carter said, a driver will make an average of two or three trips on the day they are assigned to drive. Each week, another volunteer records the total number of requests and their details in a log book.

While most of the appointments take place within a 20-mile radius of Harvard, there are a handful of drivers who will take people into Boston, Carter noted. Once in awhile Harvard Help is unable to accommodate a request, she added, most often because a volunteer’s car or SUV might be too difficult for someone to get into, or the person making the request might have special needs that could be better accommodated by the MART van arranged by the Council on Aging. Acting as a driver can be a very rewarding experience, Carter said, and a wonderful opportunity to get to know people. Drivers accompany their passengers into the doctor’s office and wait for them there, offering the kind of personal attention not often available in this day and age. For Carter, though, that kind of consideration is invaluable.

“We’re not driving them—we’re driving us,” she said, making the point that today’s volunteer might be tomorrow’s resident in need.

Phyllis Newman, who began volunteering for Harvard Help in the early 1980s, made the transition to client a few years ago. As anyone who knows Newman can attest, she has led—and continues to lead—a very active life.

“One reason I was a caller is I was keeping so busy in my retirement my children had to make an appointment to see me,” she said. “Being a caller for Harvard Help kept me home one day.”

Since she no longer drives herself, Newman periodically calls on the organization for help. While she enjoyed working as a volunteer, she has a renewed gratitude for Harvard Help now that she is what she calls “a customer.” The organization is one of the reasons she is able to stay in her own home, she said.

“Harvard Help has been such a blessing to us all.”

Newman had great praise for all of the group’s volunteers, but chose recent past President Mimmu Sloan for special accolades.

Sloan, who raised five children in Harvard after moving here from her native Finland 41 years ago, began volunteering with Harvard Help when she had three small children and was expecting a fourth. While most women would consider this more than enough to do, Sloan wanted to get involved in the community and meet people outside of her immediate generation, she said. She started as a cook, providing meals back in the days before Meals on Wheels took over this service, and worked as a phone answerer while she was at home during the day with the children. Eventually, she volunteered as a driver, something she particularly enjoyed for the chance to get to know the town’s older generation. Their stories of the Depression and the two world wars made a deep impression on Sloan, who had a particular appreciation for their hard-earned wisdom. While she was sometimes overwhelmed with the pace of keeping up with a large family, “These were people who weren’t in the immediate rush of life,” she said. “Their priorities were clearer.” To hear her stories of volunteering with Harvard Help, it becomes clear that Sloan looks back at the experience as a privilege, not a duty.

The personal touch that distinguishes Harvard Help from larger social service agencies is what makes it special, Sloan noted. She recalled forming an exceptional relationship with Elvira Scorgie, who remained in her own home for all but the last few months of her 106 years. She could not have done so without Harvard Help, Sloan said, like so many of the town’s other elderly residents who rely on the service once they surrender the freedom of their own transportation.

While she served as president of the organization for 16 years, taking over from Connie Henry in 1992, Sloan is now busy making arrangements to move back to Finland with her husband Jim. The couple will join four of their five now-grown children—and 20 grandchildren—in that country. She is looking forward to the move, she said, but reflects fondly on her experiences in the country she intended to live in for just one year.

“Volunteering is the heart of America,” she said. “It’s true that you can never give as much as you get.”

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Harvard Help, the steering committee has organized a dessert party at the Hildreth House for Wednesday, Dec. 5, at 1 p.m. All volunteers, past and present, are invited to attend the event, Carter and Edmonds said. Both extended an invitation to townspeople to volunteer with the organization, which they hope will last another 30 years with help from new volunteers.

“It’s very rewarding,” Carter said, “You feel good knowing that because of you, people can stay in their homes.”