For Anne Connor, a volunteer with the nonprofit Providence Village of Rhode Island since its inception in 2015, giving rides to elderly members isn’t her most important task. Connecting with them on a human level is much more crucial.
“This is about socialization, not just going from one point to another,” said the soft-spoken Connor, 70, who during her career had been a children’s librarian, as well as worked in the legal field in New York. “Everyone’s got a story. I love stories.”
She recently gave a ride to Joseph Santarlasci, 74, a Brown University grad, former New York City investment banker and adjunct finance professor at Bryant University. Santarlasci needed a lift from his Providence home to dialysis treatment in North Providence. His wife works weekdays, so he enlisted the aid of the Providence Village.
“I had used Uber; it was a disaster,” said Santarlasci, a Vietnam War veteran. “I’ve been using the village since mid-May, and they are always spot on. And Anne is just a great person.”
“It takes a village to raise a child” is an African proverb that was made famous when Hillary Clinton used part of it as the title of one of her books. Connor and other volunteers are applying that village concept to the other end of the age spectrum: older citizens.
In this case, the village isn’t a place. Instead, volunteers working from their homes take turns answering a call-in line for fee-paying members and accessing a database to pair available volunteers to help with whatever task is needed. Most of the volunteers are seniors themselves, largely in their 60s.
In four years, the Providence Village has amassed a group of 80 volunteers helping 120 elderly members with basic chores, such as driving them to medical appointments or stores, and doing minor household repairs. Such services allow older citizens to remain in their homes and as independent as possible, what’s known as “aging in place.”
Now the concept is going statewide.
The Village Common of Rhode Island was recently formed to serve as an umbrella organization that will encompass what organizers hope will be “villages” popping up all over Rhode Island, helping the state’s growing population of older adults remain active and involved in their communities.
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COMMON CONNECTIONS: The Village Common of Rhode Island is an attempt to harken to bygone days when neighbors typically took care of neighbors, in villages that now mostly exist in name only. From left, Cyrus O’Neil, chair of the steering committee; Jo Ellen Mistarz, executive director; Jim Maxwell, president; and Suzanne Francis, president-elect. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
Early interest has been shown in Barrington, East Providence, Burrillville and Central Falls.
“The Village Common will help establish social connections and communities of mutual support for older adults around the state,” said Cyrus O’Neil, a founding member of the Providence Village and an organizer of the Common. “We’ve had a lot of success building the Providence Village. Now we want to support local leaders in other communities to create their own local villages … that respond to the specific needs of the older adults.”
Each village will operate under The Village Common of Rhode Island, which will handle the business and operations of all of them. The staff of each village will operate independently. The Village Common has its own staff. Both it and the Providence Village run out of the nonprofit Hamilton House on Providence’s East Side.
“Each village will have its own leadership, and they will recruit members and volunteers, and do work within their community, and the Common will handle everything else,” including training and guidance on how to set up a village, said Jo Ellen Mistarz, executive director of The Village Common of Rhode Island.
TIME OF NEED
Statistics indicate there will be a growing pool of older Rhode Islanders needing help.
The U.S. Census Bureau says there were 31,872 Rhode Island residents ages 85 and older in 2015, and it projects that by 2030 that number will rise 16%, to 36,912. According to the R.I. Office of Healthy Aging, the state’s per-capita share of residents ages 85 and older is the highest in the country.
By 2030, it is estimated that 1 in 4 Rhode Islanders will be 65 or older. Statewide, more than 30% of residents are 55 and older, compared with 28% nationally. Meanwhile, growth of the senior population is global; for the first time in recorded history, people 65 and older outnumber children younger than 5 around the world.
“It truly does take a village to ensure all Rhode Islanders have the opportunity to age healthfully and happily,” said Rose Amoros Jones, director of the R.I. Office on Healthy Aging, which endorses the Village Common and other aging-related initiatives and agencies. “We all have a role to play in promoting healthy aging in our state.”
A second village is close to taking shape in Barrington.
“We’ve been meeting for about two years, and this past year, there was a lot of positive interest in developing a volunteer network,” said Laura Young, chairwoman of the Barrington Village Steering Committee. “We’re very excited about it.”
She said people are “interested in developing connections and supportive relationships, finding people they can turn to for resources.” Many elderly people move away to be closer to family or to warmer climes, and “those remaining need to find new connections and new relationships,” Young said.
In a survey taken in Barrington, she said, the need for human-to-human connection was most pressing among elders.
“We were surprised to see that connections and resource navigation was a stronger, bigger part of the conversation than transportation,” she said, adding that help with understanding modern technology was also high on the list of needs.
The Barrington Village will be officially launched in the spring with a membership drive, Young said.
“I’m excited about the opportunities for villages to begin meeting with each other,” she added.
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HELPING HAND: Anne Connor picks up Joe Santarlasci, a retiree who is benefiting from The Village Common of Rhode Island, which aims to connect seniors with volunteer services. Connor is a volunteer and helps Santarlasci by giving him rides to receive dialysis treatment. / PBN PHOTO/MIKE SKORSKI[/caption]
IT’S A MOVEMENT
The village concept isn’t new. It started in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood in 2001, and as more villages formed, a Village to Village Network was created in 2010. Nationally, The Village Movement is comprised of more than 200 villages supporting more than 40,000 older adults.
The Providence Village sprouted when a group of older adults interested in creating a stronger sense of supportive community came together. They were aware of the national movement, O’Neil said, and it took about two years for the Providence Village to become reality.
“We talk about ourselves as a community of mutual support,” O’Neil said, “and that happens in three ways: Practical support, such as rides, running errands, doing minor home maintenance, tech support and information; social engagement, giving the opportunity to connect with people at events; and the opportunity to volunteer and make a difference, because older folks may be retired but still have a lot of life experience to contribute and want to feel like they’re making a difference.”
Then there was the business side of the operation.
“How do you take that same concept of the Providence Village, which is very successful, and help develop additional villages across the state, remembering it’s a volunteer-run organization and most of the work is provided by volunteers?” Mistarz said. “We need to be aware of what our costs are, what our business operations are. And the best approach, it seemed, was to find a way to share the administrative structure, the business operation, the whole infrastructure, financing, fundraising, the office systems, and let other people across the state develop villages within the Village Common.”
Despite the thousands of elderly people in Rhode Island, Mistarz noted that only about 200 people are members of organizations such as the Providence Village.
“We can do better than that, and it’s very motivating to think we need to do something,” she said. “We’re all aging. We have a growing population, and this is a good answer, it keeps costs down and helps people remain in the community as long as possible, and promotes healthy aging.”
RAISING MONEY
Jennifer Hawkins, executive director of One Neighborhood Builders, a nonprofit that has a similar initiative called the Central Providence Healthy Aging Network, supports the expansion of villages, calling it a concept with “a great deal of merit.”
But Hawkins said her agency’s initiative focuses on a different demographic.
“The village model serves middle- and upper-income persons, while what we do is aimed at [the] low- and extremely low-income population,” Hawkins said. “It would be interesting to see if they can apply the traditional village model to those with not a lot of car [ownership] or home ownership, at the poverty level. We’d be happy to work with them; helping people age strong is a great thing.”
Currently, the cost to join the Providence Village is $40 a month for individuals and $60 for a household located within the service area, which covers the East Side, downtown Providence and part of Pawtucket. There are also associate memberships of $25 for those who live outside the service area and don’t need a visit from a volunteer.
“When we started, we looked at what others were charging and set our rates lower, but then heard from people who said they couldn’t afford $480 a year,” O’Neil said. “With the Village Common, villages can share administration and staff and resources, and that lowers the costs and gives us a much greater impact. And it increases the fundraising capacity by having a Village Common, with the goal to drive down the dues.”
Right now, there is a capital campaign to raise $250,000 over three years to fund the Village Common. So far, half has been raised, including an $80,000, two-year grant from the R.I. Executive Office of Health and Human Services, and a $10,000 Tufts Health Plan Foundation Momentum Grant.
Support has also come from Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island, which in December 2016 gave $25,000 to the Providence Village for further development and implementation of its strategic goals and operating plan.
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VILLAGE GUIDE: Jo Ellen Mistarz, executive director of The Village Common of Rhode Island, says each village under the umbrella organization that seeks to connect seniors with volunteer services will have its own leadership and will recruit members and volunteers. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
The insurer later launched a pilot program with the village for its Medicare-Medicaid dual-eligible members who live alone in the Providence Village’s service area. As part of that pilot, Neighborhood Health Plan care managers would recommend the Providence Village program to members, based on the goals of their care plans.
“We are enthusiastic to support the growth of Village Common of Rhode Island and their efforts to extend their resources and volunteers to communities across Rhode Island,” said David Burnett, chief growth officer at Neighborhood Health Plan, with the goal being “to assist many Rhode Islanders to thrive independently in their own homes.”
‘STORIES TO TELL’
Peter Viner Brown, 65, enjoys being part of the community that is the Providence Village as a volunteer and board member. He joined two years ago, saying that as a retiree trying to complete “a never-ending list of projects around the house, I decided to volunteer.
“I thoroughly enjoy it; it’s fun working with older people. They all have stories to tell and it’s nice as you drive them around to hear their experiences,” Brown said. “I’ve never had a bad experience spending time with people.”
He said the name “village” is a good one, although it can cause momentary confusion when recruiting for members and volunteers. “When we’re at the farmers markets at our table and people see the word ‘village,’ they think we’re selling real estate until we explain what the concept is,” he said with a laugh.
Jane Adler is an event coordinator and activities chairwoman with Providence Village, overseeing and organizing activities such as monthly Sunday night dinners, book clubs, trips to museums in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, concerts, walking tours and a wine meet-and-greet.
“I’m not involved with the Village Common but think it will be wonderful,” said Adler, 70. “As we grow older, we have less people in our lives, friends move to be near their kids, our kids move away. We’re more and more isolated, and the village concept addresses that.”
The cost of elderly isolation is emotional and economic. The National Institute for Health Care Management reported that social isolation among older people costs the federal government $6.7 billion in Medicare spending annually. Isolation greatly increases the risk of failing health, the report showed.
COMMUNITY CAVALRY
Kate Hoepke, executive director of the San Francisco Village and a national thought leader on aging, said Rhode Island’s strength in getting the Common up and running across the state “is its terrific leadership. … They’re on the right track.”
Americans are aging differently now than they did in past generations, who “worked to retire and the culture said go golfing or go to Florida,” Hoepke said. “Our generation is looking at that differently in what’s next for us and I think it’s creating optimism. I believe we’ll need all of us to collectively shape our American future.”
Hoepke called the village movement “a grassroots ground game for social change.”
“The cavalry is not coming,” she said. “How are we going to age in a way that sustains us? Through community.”
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CRUCIAL SUPPORT: Volunteer Anne Connor meets with Joe Santarlasci, a retiree who is benefiting from The Village Common of Rhode Island, which aims to connect seniors with volunteer services such as rides or doing minor household repairs. Connor gives Santarlasci rides to receive dialysis treatment. / PBN PHOTO/MIKE SKORSKI[/caption]
Vivienne Lasky, 70, is a Providence Village member who lives on her own. “I realize you really can’t do it all alone; it does take a village,” she said. “Throughout history, people did look out for each other more.”
She likes the sense of community that comes with being a member, and how volunteers are caring. “If you come out of a medical appointment and it looks like you want to talk about it, they’ll listen,” she said.
She’s had a litany of medical issues, requiring rides from Providence Village volunteers, rides that not only serve the practical purpose of getting to a doctor’s appointment, but also provide some social interaction.
“They talk about a book they read that you may have read. … It’s more than a ride,” Lasky said. “You get a little visit. When you’re on your own a lot, that’s a good deal. You touch base with another person.”
Getting a ride from volunteer Anne Connor was also a chance for Joseph Santarlasci to show off his dapper fashion sense.
After his recent dialysis treatment, Connor dropped him off at his downtown apartment complex. He stepped out of her car with his cane, dressed in smart, casual clothes and stylish Halloween-orange socks befitting the late-October day.
For Adler, volunteering is part of an important mission helping older people fight isolation. She loves setting up activities for them.
“I’ve signed almost everyone up who’s a member [of Providence Village], and they all want activities, to meet people,” Adler said. “Maybe 20 joined for transportation, but it’s usually friendships they’re looking for.”
