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Campers from Solon make commitment to parks
(by Sue Reid - July 02, 2009)
Campers from Solon make commitment to parks
By SUE REID
When Solon residents Jack and Joan Robertson head south to visit national parks, the active seniors are not typical tourists.
Instead, the couple work as volunteers at the parks, where they stay a minimum of two months and perform a variety of duties.
"I do practically anything I'm asked to do," said Mr. Robertson, whose background is in public works. That includes everything from cutting grass and painting stripes in parking lots to repairing picnic tables.
Mrs. Robertson, whose background is as an administrative assistant, has performed office duties, as well as working in the visitor center and selling items in the gift shop on some of their volunteer journeys. The couple have also done research work for the parks.
The Robertsons represent a new face of volunteering, said Jill Frankel, director of senior services for the City of Solon. They are a part of a growing number of seniors who look beyond the typical social-service avenue to volunteer and focus on things of interest to them.
"Traditional volunteers in the past were looking to work in social service organizations and looking for regular schedules and very task-related activities," Ms. Frankel said. "Now the studies are showing that new volunteers or the baby boomers who are moving into volunteer stage or age, are looking for the true meaning in everything they do for volunteering," she said.
"They want to take on a project, and they want to be autonomous and flexible," Ms. Frankel said.
Mr. Robertson said he and his wife began volunteering at parks in Georgia, Florida and Texas about 16 years ago.
"We wrote a general letter, and we sent it to four parks and three private campgrounds that we thought might have been interested in volunteers down south," Mr. Robertson said. Just three days later, he recalled, they received a call from a state park in Florida. In their letter, they had indicated their hobbies and were told immediately there was an opening. "They were really looking for someone like Joan for office work, and we took it," he said.
On their first trip down south, they stayed for 90 days, he said. The couple have a 26-foot camper.
Volunteering offers the Robertsons a chance to meet new people, they said. "We get to see a lot of different personalities as well as the various skills people have," Mr. Robertson said.
Also, by volunteering more than just a couple of weeks or a month, they get to know the community, Mr. Robertson said.
Ms. Frankel said volunteering provides an opportunity to be actively connected to your community.
For Leona Graves, of Solon, who helps out one day a week at the Solon Senior Center, volunteering not only allows her to help others, but "it takes the pressure off of me being alone," she said.
"It gets me out of the house," said Ms. Graves, who answers the telephone at the center each Monday as well as keeps track of all the volunteer hours for the seniors at the center. "I look forward to it."
"Leona is here, rain, shine, sleet or hail," Ms. Frankel said. She works each Monday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Ms. Graves, who also was active as a volunteer with her now late husband, Robert, participates in the senior center's knitting group as well. The volunteer group donates everything they knit to cancer-related projects as well as to the armed forces.
The staff at the senior center with whom she works is so wonderful, Ms. Graves said. "It just puts me around a lot of lovely people," she said. "I look forward to it."
Ms. Frankel said that volunteers at the senior center are vital to its functioning and in providing the recreational, educational and social service programming available.
Those with traditional roles, like Ms. Graves, assist with the front desk and receptionist work, while others come in to assist with the center's daily call program, where they call homebound residents just to check in and say hello.
There are also volunteers at the center in the nontraditional sense who take on projects and provide instruction, Ms. Frankel said. Those who approach the center to work as a volunteer are first asked if they want to do something within the department of senior services, Ms. Frankel said.
"If we are unable to provide them with something that fits their needs, we try to provide suggestions of other places they can reach out to that we know are accepting volunteers," Ms. Frankel said. "We are also hoping that people who are looking for volunteers may come to us so we are able to make our members aware" opportunities exist.
Solon resident Kay Boylan stopped in to the center one day looking for something to do and wanted it to be meaningful, Ms. Frankel recalled. Now, she serves as president of the Solon Meals on Wheels, which provides in-home meals weekdays for those unable to prepare their own meals.
What is most gratifying about her involvement with Meals on Wheels, Ms. Boylan said, is the fact that "you're lending a hand and passing it forward to someone. That is very beneficial."
For many of the people Meals on Wheels serves, Ms. Boylan said, her staff, which are comprised of volunteers who are both seniors and non-seniors, often provide one of the few contacts for people who live alone.
"We are a checkpoint," Ms. Boylan said. "If one of my drivers go to a home and if their cooler isn't out on the porch, we are the only checkpoint if meals pile up" to make sure they are OK.
Ms. Frankel said that for those who volunteer, studies show that it improves physical and psychological well-being.
"It's been shown to have a number of benefits," she said, including greater longevity, higher functional ability, lower rates of depression and less incidents of heart disease in those who volunteer."
"It helps me as I am helping others," Ms. Graves said.
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