Last year the Harvard Council on Aging launched its Friendly Visitor program. The aim of the program is to match seniors with volunteers that provide companionship through weekly visits, phone calls, and outings.
Before starting the program, participating seniors meet in their homes with Maria Holland, the Council on Aging outreach coordinator who oversees the Friendly Visitor program. During these meetings, the seniors inform Maria about their lives and the things they enjoy doing. Maria also meets with each of the volunteers and discusses their hobbies and activities. She then matches a senior with a volunteer, based on similar interests. All volunteers undergo a background check and receive training before starting the program.
I am one of the first “batch” of friendly visitors. I thought this would be a way for me to volunteer in town without committing to a strict schedule and lots of meetings. I also thought it would be a nice thing to do for someone else. Little did I realize how much I would get out of the program.
My senior (I’ll call her Joyce) and I met a little over a year ago. The first visit seemed to go okay. Maria was there at the beginning but left us partway through. At the end of the visit, Joyce and I talked about whether or not we should meet again and agreed that we’d give it another week. We didn’t seem to have much in common but we were both cribbage players. Maybe a game or two would help pass the time.
That first afternoon, who could have guessed that from then on we would visit every week? We talk about families, health, gardening, cooking, wildlife, and Harvard history. We share treats—Joyce gets out the good chocolates for our visits. We even decorated a gingerbread house for Christmas. Joyce was very diplomatic and waited until I had gone home before fixing the parts of the house that I had accidentally mangled. When I was recovering from surgery this spring, Joyce called to make sure I was OK. She even persuaded her daughter to drive her over so she could deliver a card (for me) and a cake (for my husband—he’d told her he was starving). As for our game of cribbage? We haven’t yet gotten around to it. Maybe we’ll have time this winter.