For seniors in need, ERMAA can help out

Picture this scenario:

You’re an older person living in Hooper or Scribner and you need someone to take you to a doctor’s appointment. Your family lives far away and you don’t know your neighbors very well.

You still need the help.

What do you do?

Joyce Vavricek suggests asking your pastor to contact an ERMAA representative who can line you up with a volunteer.

ERMAA stands for Expanding Rural Ministries to Aging Adults and is an interdenominational affiliation of churches and facilities that works to help senior citizens.

Through ERMAA, Scribner and Hooper residents have launched Meals on Wheels programs in their communities. They’ve also hosted a conference on spirituality, said Vance Valerio, director of the ERMAA project for the Nebraska Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Most recently, however, ERMAA has organized a Senior Services Directory of 50 area volunteers who can help seniors in need of transportation, light housekeeping, handyman or companionship services, said Vavricek, the community coordinator.

Volunteers could help seniors in many ways.

For example, if an older man didn’t want to leave his wife at home alone while he went to a doctor’s appointment, he could get an ERMAA volunteer to stay with her. Or if an older woman needed a doorknob replaced, she could seek assistance from an ERMAA volunteer.

Possible services also could include yard work, cleaning out a garage or a trip to a hairdresser or grocery store.

And ERMAA even has a solution for proud seniors.

"We didn’t want seniors to feel like they were needy," Vavricek said. "So we’ve always included the possibility that there might be a fee. We leave it to the volunteer and senior to work out."

In that case, the senior might provide the volunteer with a pan of cinnamon rolls or pray with her.

What’s more, both the Hooper and Scribner community foundations have donated funds to ERMAA, which the ELCA has matched.

"So if somebody needs a door replaced and they don’t have the funds, we can apply for financial aid and we have money available to defray the costs," Vavricek said.

Valerio said the original grant from the Lutheran Services for the Elderly Endowment came from the ELCA headquarters in Chicago.

"The grant was for 2008-09 and we are hopeful of extending the grant to 2010 and hoping to find another benefactor to support the project over the next couple of years," he said.

In the meantime, Vavricek is working to get the word out about these newest services.

"We’re just getting up and running," she said. "We started taking calls the 21st of September."

The Meals on Wheels programs are continuing. With this program, nursing homes make a meal which they sell to seniors at cost and volunteers deliver them.

"In our first year, we delivered 500 meals," Vavricek said.

Meals on Wheels is provided only to seniors who live in town, but other services are available to seniors who live in the country, as volunteers are available in those areas.

The meals program continues to provide a valuable service, because Scribner no longer has a senior center and Hooper’s center is only open three days a week.

"We have our seniors covered five days a week," Vavricek said.

In the future, the group hopes to have educational and social outlets for seniors.

Seven churches and two nursing homes are involved with ERMAA. The churches are: St. John’s (Lutheran) on the Cuming County Line, St. Lawrence Catholic Church, United Church of Christ, United Lutheran and St. John’s Ridgeley, Scribner; Redeemer Lutheran and St. Rose of Lima Catholic at Hooper and St. Paul’s Lutheran at Uehling. The nursing homes are Good Samaritan in Scribner and Hooper Care Center.

Valerio is pleased with what he’s seen.

"I’m very proud of them," he said. "They’ve worked diligently between the two small communities to really give life to this program to support their elders."

He believes ERMAA is vital in the small communities and noted that at least 25 percent of the people in all rural counties in eastern Nebraska are age 65 and older.

One of the best parts, however, is that people are crossing denominational lines to work together, he said.

Vavricek also appreciates the unity she sees.

"It’s a great program and it brings everybody in the community together," she said adding, "It’s just people helping people. It’s a unified effort and that is what’s fun about it."