Janet

Janet lives in a small two bedroom house on an acre in Sammamish. She bought the house a long time ago. Since that time, old age and some chronic conditions have made it difficult for her to walk around, much less keep up her beautiful property. Janet does pretty well on her own - she became a Faith in Action client mainly to receive help with her yardwork.

Faith in Action recently got a phone call from the Care-a-Van program of Hebrew High at the Jewish Community Center in Phoenix. They are 28 teenagers and their chaperons traveling throughout the West, doing community service projects in the morning, and then doing touristy activities in the afternoon. Their Seattle-area community service project that they set up fell through - could they help us instead?

Janet's home was one of the projects we selected for these teens. The teens arrived on Tuesday, June 22. If you remember, this was our first real day of summer and the weather was beautiful - the teens really lucked out!

They set to work dead heading the rhododendrons, weeding, raking, and pruning. Originally they were only going to take about 40 minutes, but I think they got so much in the spirit of the work, they stayed quite a bit longer.

I talked to Janet today about the work the teens did, and she was thrilled. "They worked so hard", she reported. "It looks so much better," she continued, "I am so grateful to have Faith in Action in my life".

For more about Faith in Action, please visit our website.

Margaret

Our new client, Margaret, walks sometimes with a cane, and uses a couple of hearing aids. But, considering that she's 92 years old, she's otherwise in good health. She enjoys volunteering at Providence Marianwood, reading, and her cat. Margaret's good friend at church has been a client of Faith in Action for several years. She kept on telling Margaret to join up with the agency, but Margaret was very proud. Margaret didn't want to admit that she could use the help. But she finally decided not to be so stubborn, and called the Faith in Action office.

 

We just got a note from Margaret on Monday, after a ride to a hearing aid specialist. She wrote:

 

My first time with Faith in Action was a very pleasant experience. Dick Drumm was so nice and so easy to talk to. Thank you - I will not hesitate to call you next time.

 

Our trained volunteers, like Dick Drumm, help make our new clients feel comfortable accepting the assistance that they need. With their help - and your support - we can continue to serve frail elders like Margaret.

 

For more information about our programs, see:

http://www.faithinaction4seniors.org

Barbara

Barbara is one of our younger clients - she's in her late 60s. But she has a lot of health concerns: she has Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and heart disease; her diabetes has lead to peripheral neuropathy of her hands and feet, and she needs a cane to get around; she is hard of hearing and uses a hearing aid; her vision is starting to fail; and she is using drugs to stave off a further development of her early Alzheimer's.

 

You might think that Barbara wouldn't be that much fun to be around, but when I met her, I was struck by her cheerful and positive attitude. With all these ailments, she does has a lot of medical appointments, though. Her younger sister lives in the area, but is fully-employed, and can't take Barbara to all the doctors she needs to see.

 

In the almost two years she's been a client with Faith in Action, volunteers have driven 675 miles on Barbara's behalf, 20 trips to medical appointments.

For more information, see: Faith in Action - Supporting Senior Independence.