Lots of people want to help seniors, and the first thing they
think of is people living in senior centers. That's great - but
remember a lot of seniors that need assistance still live in their
house or an apartment on their own. That's why organizations like
Meals on Wheels exist, to help seniors in their own homes.
If you want to volunteer to help seniors, be prepared to:
- Undergo a criminal background check. A previous conviction
will not necessarily preclude you from volunteering; it will
depend on the nature of the offense, the number of years since
the conviction and the policies of the organization you are
going to assist. You will probably need to pay for this
background check yourself.
- Go through an orientation or training, where you learn how
to interact with seniors. You may need to learn about
maintaining confidentiality and working with people with
limited eyesight or hearing, limited mobility, and diminishing
memory.
- Be fully vaccinated. People who are elderly are at greatly
increased risk of death from the flu and COVID. If you aren't
fully vaccinated, please STAY AWAY from senior homes.
Don't let any bureaucracy discourage you;
the elderly are a
vulnerable population and must be kept safe! That's
why there are such rules.
You can volunteer through a senior center, where you go onsite at
the center; through a nonprofit that serves seniors in their own
homes or at a center; or independently, on your own, just to be
nice, but remember that DIY volunteering can incur liability risks
(what will you do if you are accused of harming an elderly
neighbor you have been trying to help, for instance?).
You also may need to seek funding yourself for activities you want
to do; a senior center, retirement home or nonprofit probably
cannot cover costs associated with starting a new program, but may
be able to accept donations to fund your activities so you do not
pay taxes on any funds you gather. If your project is going to
cost money and you are going to ask for donations, you will need
to have a written budget showing exactly what costs will be, and a
relationship with a nonprofit organizations to accept those
donations on your behalf so you don't have to pay taxes on those
donations.
Remember that, if you are going to volunteer on the premises of
any facility, you MUST have written permission from that facility
to volunteer, even if your volunteering seems benign, like playing
music or reading to people.
These ideas aren't cutesy and most aren't one-day, one-and-done
activities, because that's not what seniors need. Remember that
the need of the seniors is the priority, not your desire for a
feel-good experience that isn't inconvenient for you.
Ideas for Volunteering With Seniors
- Recruit, schedule and support volunteers to set up a cybercafe
in a retirement home and recruit and train volunteers to
help new users connect with information and their loved ones.
- Set up a Wii gaming system at a retirement home and
train the residents on how to use Wii for fitness and to
maintain mental agility. A volunteer who will lead the
residents in using the Wii is great too!
- Work with a senior-serving nonprofit in your area to create
a volunteer group of people that can help seniors with
issues they may have smart phones, computers, wi fi networks
and printers in their home. Many seniors have printers
in their home but the network connection has been broken and
they have no idea on how to reconnect. Or they need the text
size or color contrast on their computer or smart phone
adjusted. Or they need software updated, especially anti-virus
software. Or they need to know how to put phones from their
smartphone onto a laptop or a free online space like Flickr so
that if anything happens with their phone, they still have
their photos. This resource can help you better
understand issues elders may have regarding networked
devices.
- Help seniors with grocery shopping. This can be as
simple as just riding with a senior on mass transit, walking
with him or her inside a grocery and reaching for items too
high up or out of reach, and helping carry items home.
- Recruit, schedule and support volunteers to present a
series of movement classes using music and art at local
senior centers for an entire season (an entire summer,
for instance). Remember that seniors have limited mobility and
you need to do things that don't put seniors off-balance or in
any kind of physical danger.
- Develop an awareness program about health issues
faced by seniors (diabetes, arthritis, and, yes, HIV/AIDS,
prescription drug abuse, etc.). Do 20 minute presentations on
each of these issues. Have an expert there ready to answer
questions by the seniors.
- Write, cast, and direct a play, or scenes from a
musical to present at a retirement home or senior
center. Even just a 30 minute presentation will go over BIG!
You could also write, cast and direct a play featuring seniors
themselves.
- Get a drama club to come to the center or campus
and do a skit or series of scenes from plays, or to work with
seniors so they can also participate as performers.
- Cast and direct a play of seniors themselves, to
present in a retirement home, senior center or to the
community at large.
- Get a local band to come perform for free. This can
be a marching band, a bluegrass band, a gospel quartet, a
chamber orchestra - at my grandmother's retirement home, they
have an Elvis impersonator that comes every year and the
residents adore him!
- Arrange for local choirs or bands from schools,
community groups or communities of faith to come sing
- Organize a choir of seniors or a weekly
sing-a-long, even for just the summer.
- Create a workshop to discuss personal safety, such
as how to avoid phone, mail, email or door-to-door scams.
- Interview seniors to create a community display for
a public space (such as your local court house), or a web site
or an online video regarding something in your community's
history: what the area experienced during the Great
Depression, what the community experienced during the Civil
Rights movement of the 1960s, a neighborhood that does not
exist anymore, a civic movement that swept the area at one
time, etc. Notify all local newspapers, local blogs &
local TV about it, as well as your local Department on Aging
and your state Department on Aging. Tweet about it, post about
it to Facebook, etc., and get these seniors a lot of attention
they will absolutely delight in - and help preserve your
area's cultural heritage.
- Video record or audio record seniors singing, and
share it on the Internet via a blog, a Facebook page for your
project, or a web site for your project. I did this with my
grandmother. Recording just one or two songs a week,
posting them to the Internet, and then letting all local
newspapers, local blogs & local TV know about it, as well
as your local Department on Aging and your state Department on
Aging, as well as tweeting about it, posting about it to
Facebook, etc., would get these seniors a lot of attention
they will absolutely delight in - and help preserve your
area's cultural heritage.
- Recruit a group of friends to come to a senior residential
home every day and read aloud the newspaper front page
stories and obituaries to seniors, or from a religious
text (the Bible, the Koran, whatever) or from a book like Chicken
Soup for the Soul. The organization that runs the
facility can help you identify which seniors would like this
and what to read. Obituaries are VERY important to seniors -
they want to know who among their friends have died.
- Recruit a group of friends to escort seniors to the
services of the community of faith (church, temple, mosque)
they belong to. Doing this even just once a month would be
HUGE to seniors.
- Create a community garden for seniors living in
apartments or living in houses with no yard
- Go to flower shops and ask if you could take any
flowers they are going to throw away to a nursing home.
- Help seniors vote absentee before an election, by
bringing them forms and bringing them literature about the
issues or candidates (so they don't have to travel to a
polling station on election day)
- Help seniors volunteer themselves. Work with local
NGOs to create activities seniors could do as volunteers to
help others. These could be activities the seniors go
elsewhere to do, or that seniors could do in their own homes,
apartments or rooms. Or let seniors know about volunteering
for people who sew, knit, or crochet, and for those who want
to make greeting cards for ill children or to USA
military personnel, and help them participate in these
programs. These include:
- Call your local humane society, ASPCA chapter and animal
shelters, and ask if residents could make appropriate
bedding for dogs and cats; if so, help seniors know
about this opportunity, and then drop off what they prepare at
the shelter. There are lots of suggestions online for making
dog and cat beds.
- Organize a day where senior residents who still cook to
make appropriate food treats for dogs and cats, and then drop
them off at the shelter (you need to call local humane
societies, ASPCA chapters and animal shelters FIRST to make
sure they will accept such treats). You can find a variety of
recipes to make treats for dogs and cats online.
- Work with a local dog obedience school to create a pet
visitation program, where trained, screened dogs and
cats are brought by their owners to the home for safe
interactions with seniors. Help set up a pet
therapy program where, once a week or twice a month,
trained volunteers bring pre-screened dogs and cats to the
center to interact with patients. You cannot simply call some
people and have them bring their pets; you must look into
liability insurance, training for the volunteers, a screening
program for pets, etc.
- Hold a spa day, where volunteers give manicures, pedicures,
and facials to residents. Make sure volunteers have experience
giving manicures, pedicures, and facials and know how to be
particularly gentle with seniors.
- You will probably be surprised at how many seniors are
online: my grandmothers are in their 90s, and at their
apartment complex for seniors in a small town in Kentucky,
there are at least a dozen private Internet networks,
as well as an Internet network that any resident can use via
the apartment complex management office. If that's the case at
the residential center you want to volunteer at (just take a
laptop there and look at how many networks you can find, as
well as talk to the office staff), then help create a
private YahooGroup or
GoogleGroup for the
residents and their families, with you acting as
moderator of the group, reading each message before it gets
shared with everyone, to ensure it's not inappropriate.
Encourage residents to share what they are doing on a
particular day or week, or have done - a concert they will
attend, or have attended (and how they felt about it),
something they saw on TV, something they would like to
organize in a common room, a recipe, etc.
- If you do find a lot of seniors in a community are online
(see previous bullet item), let them know about virtual volunteering / how to be an
online volunteer. Be sure to ask regularly who is
volunteering online; a local newspaper or television station
might be interested!
- Help the senior center or retirement community set up a Google Calendar or a
Facebook page to list all of the events the site is having
for residents (blood pressure measurement, hearing aid
cleaning, group exercises, religious services, book mobile
arrivals, Wii gaming afternoon, group sing-a-longs, etc.).
This helps residents to know what's happening, and also helps
their families to know what events are going on. Be sure this
online calendar is publicized in various ways: via small
posters in all common spaces, via handouts to all family
members, etc.
- Become a volunteer with the Long
Term Care Ombudsman Program, which has affiliates all
over the USA. You must be at least 21 and have your own
transportation. To find your local program, go to Google and
type in Long Term Care Ombudsman Program and the name
of your city, or your state. "The most important requirements
are compassion, respect for older persons, and common sense. A
positive attitude, ability to communicate effectively and
available time are important. Ombudsman programs provide
training and supervision in developing specific skills."
What could you do WITH residents of a senior home, with everyone
out in the common room? Could you make Christmas ornaments? Could
you bring items and have seniors dress up for Halloween? Or
celebrate Madi Gras together? Could you make any sort of simple
craft item (the Internet is packed with craft ideas for groups,
for Vacation Bible School classes, for summer camps and more)?
Engaging in an activity WITH seniors, not for them, is infinitely
more valuable to the seniors. Please do NOT make cards for seniors
- many facilities now refuse these outright, as these can actually
make seniors feel even more lonely, they can contain inappropriate
messaging, and these are largely performative for the volunteers.
You can also try looking through the volunteering opportunities
that are posted to all the major volunteer matching web sites in
the USA for activities related to seniors:
For Canada:
Volunteer Canada
Volunteer Centres in Ontario
Voluntary
Organizations Consortium of British Columbia
Le
bénévolat au Québec
Idealist/Action Without
Borders
If you use my page to create a program or event, please contact
me after you have finished the event or program
and let me know how it turned out, what program you picked,
the address of your blog, etc.
You may also want to review these
resources regarding labor laws and volunteering.
If you feel mistreated as a volunteer, here is advice
for volunteers on how to complain.
Here is a list of books and other resources regarding Caring for Your Elderly Family Member /
Loved One
Also see
The Last Virtual
Volunteering Guidebook available
for purchase as a paperback & an ebook
This book is for both organizations new to virtual
volunteering, as well as for organizations already involving
online volunteers who want to improve or expand their
programs.
The last chapter of the book is especially for online
volunteers themselves.
This book is for both organizations new to
virtual volunteering, as well as for organizations already
involving online volunteers who want to improve or expand
their programs. The last chapter of the book is
especially for online volunteers themselves.
Finding Community Service and
Volunteering for Teens
How to Find Volunteering
Opportunities, a resource for adults who want to
volunteer
Advice for volunteering as a group /
volunteering in a group
Advice for family volunteering -
volunteering by families with children and, related,
advice for teaching children
compassion & understanding instead of pity with regard
to poverty.
Home-Based (in your own home)
Volunteering Where Your Service is NOT via a Computer or the
Internet (at least not to actually DO the volunteering
service, but you may need to report your work online).
You are NOT too young to volunteer! Ways
you can volunteer, no matter how young you are
Advice for Finding Volunteer
Activities During the Holidays
Volunteering with organizations that
help animals and wildlife.
Volunteering on Public Lands in
the USA (national parks, national forests, state parks,
wetlands, etc.)
Volunteering to Address Your Own
Mental Health. There are many people that have high
hopes that volunteering for a "good cause" can help them
address their own mental health issues - depression,
loneliness, even feelings of suicide. And, absolutely, social
interactions and accomplishments that can come from
volunteering can help improve a person's mental health. But
volunteering activities can also can augment negative
feelings. This resource is designed to help you have realistic
expectations for volunteering and to avoid an experience that
will make you feel worse instead of better.
Volunteering with organizations that
help animals and wildlife.
How
to complain about your volunteering experience.
Using Your Business Skills for
Good - Volunteering Your Business Management Skills, to
help people starting or running small businesses / micro
enterprises, to help people building businesses in
high-poverty areas, and to help people entering or re-entering
the work force.
Volunteering In Pursuit of a
Medical, Veterinary or Social Work degree / career
Fund Raising For a Cause or
Organization
Creating or Holding a Successful
Community Event or Fund Raising Event.
Volunteering To Help After
Major Disasters.
How to Make a Difference
Internationally/Globally/in Another Country Without
Going Abroad
Donating Things Instead of Cash
or Time (In-Kind Contributions)
Details on how to quickly fill a community
service obligation from a court or school.
Group Volunteering for Atheist and
Secular Volunteers
Ideas for Funding Your
Volunteering Abroad Trip.
Details on volunteering
abroad (volunteering internationally).
Ideas for Leadership
Volunteering Activities
These are more than just do-it-yourself volunteering - these
are ideas to create or lead a sustainable, lasting benefit to
a community, recruiting others to help and to have a
leadership role as a volunteer. These can also be activities
for the Girl Scouts Gold Award, the Duke of Edinburgh's Award
(U.K.), a mitzvah project, or even scholarship consideration.
Ideas for Creating Your Own
Volunteering Activity.
Careers Working With Animals
(for the benefit of animals)
Helping People Address Their
Problems with Plastic
How to mobilize a community to clean up plastic bottles,
plastic bags and other plastic waste from their environment,
and how to reduce their use of such items in the future
© 2009-2019 by
Jayne
Cravens, all rights reserved. No part of this material can
be reproduced in print or in electronic form without express
written permission by Jayne Cravens.