Neighbor to Neighbor:
Fairfield Country Lutheran Churches in Partnership with
Lutheran Social Services Helping Neighbors in Need.

NEIGHBOR TO NEIGHBOR is joint ministry of Lutheran Social Services of New England, and seven area Lutheran Congregations, including Our Saviour’s Church. After a year of planning, the program will be launched in the next few months.

The goal of NEIGHBOR TO NEIGHBOR is to lend a hand to our elderly members who need some help in their homes. The focus groups and interviews that we did last year underscored that most elderly would like to stay in their homes without being a burden on family. Just a little extra help – a ride to the doctor, help with fixing a leaky faucet or shoveling the walk, or companionship for an hour or two – can significantly improve the quality of life of an elder.

Here is how the program will work. Lutheran Social Services of Southbury is providing a trained volunteer coordinator – Judy Slason – to recruit and train volunteers from each of the participating congregations.

Interested members should fill out the attached Volunteer Survey Form and hand it in to Audrey Saad in the Church Office. Ms. Slason will then contact volunteers and arrange a short 4-hour training session to review basic information for safety and care of elderly

Volunteers can be very specific about how much time they can make available, and what tasks they will perform. You can even limit yourself to members of your own congregation. Once we have a core of volunteers, we will distribute forms to our congregation members to request services – and Judy Slason will match them with volunteers.

Volunteer Survey Form

Neighbor to Neighbor
By Joe Nagy

(See link below to download the Senior Resource Manual)

Our Saviour’s Church will be joining Lutheran churches in Fairfield County and Lutheran Social Services (LSS) to launch a joint ministry that will match volunteers from congregations with church members who need some help in their homes. The program is called Neighbor to Neighbor, Lutherans Partnering to Help Neighbors in Need. The goal is to bring in-home, non-medical support to parishioners in need. Our mission: to make life a little easier for our older and disabled friends and to enhance their ability to remain in their own homes longer and with fewer worries.

Volunteer forms for both seniors in need and volunteer providers will be distributed soon. You may choose to help members of your own or another congregation. Volunteers can help with such things as transportation, minor household maintenance, grocery shopping, yard work, or just companionship.

The project was initiated by Lutheran Social Services over a year ago. Over the winter, Our Saviour’s Church joined several Lutheran congregations in Fairfield County, along with Lutheran Social Services staff, to discuss opportunities for new ministries to serve the seniors in our congregations. The group contracted with duBay Horton Associates of Bridgeport to assess the needs of seniors and caregivers within the churches and more generally in greater Bridgeport.

A working group of clergy and lay leaders from the churches met over the winter months. They set up structured interviews with providers and caregivers, distributed surveys, and arranged focus groups of seniors and caregivers. There were five major findings from the project.

1. Affordable ongoing companionship, socialization, and check-in are often unmet. One caregiver stated, “Inexpensive in-home service is the best way to go – [adult] children cannot financially, physically, or emotionally keep doing this.”

2. Seniors and their caregivers struggle to navigate the system of needed services. One senior care provider who works in a hospital noted that a greatest unmet need is a service that “helps them to participate successfully in the medical system.”

3. Finances prove to be a complex issue – the middle class is the lost class in the eldercare system. There are state programs for lower income seniors and the wealthier seniors can afford private care. However, there is a need for affordable care for those who fall in the middle. One Eldercare attorney stated that “the middle class is the lost class. They are nickled and dimed and can’t get the care they need.”

4. Many senior services do exist but often the seniors are reluctant to engage because they are reticent, set in ways, or have difficulty with transportation. One senior survey respondent felt that “transportation is a big issue here. As a result, many residents don't go out for weeks at a time. If people don't have family, or a car, they are imprisoned.”

5. Families of seniors are often busy (working full-time, caring for young children), geographically distant, or have difficulty in making the tough decisions surrounding the continued care for their parents. About 75% of seniors surveyed within the churches live with family members – a much higher proportion than those surveyed at the senior centers (18%).

The findings and draft recommendations were reviewed and prioritized at a meeting in June 2010. The participating congregations are now making plans to launch Neighbor to Neighbor next year. For those who are interested, copies of a Senior Resource Manual are available in the Narthex, and a PDF copy of the manual is posted on the church web site.

Editor’s Note: Joe Nagy, along with Dave Brown, Vic and Joan Berecz, and Pastor Mark, represented Our Saviour’s on the Neighbor to Neighbor task force. Pastor Mark is chairing the LSS program.

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