Ellsworth group aims to connect with shut-ins

ELLSWORTH – Volunteers are needed throughout Hancock County to provide one-on-one help to elderly and disabled residents who don’t otherwise qualify for assistance.

The need is great and resources are scarce, according to Josephine “Jo” Cooper, program director for Faith in Action Community Connection, a new group trying to match volunteers with the people who need them.

The Community Connection volunteers would provide basic assistance to shut-ins, the elderly and short- and long-term disabled people, Cooper said. The services wouldn’t be based on income, which usually eliminates many needy people from receiving existing services that are available only to Medicaid-eligible residents.

The help might include yard work, grocery shopping, light housework, errands or transportation to medical and other appointments.

Or it might be as simple as calling someone who is isolated and lonely to check on them or visit them once in a while.

Some people might need long-term help, while others might need assistance only while they’re recovering from an injury, she said.

All people would be treated with dignity, she said. No questionnaires need to be filled out, and no proof of income is necessary.

“We knew the need was there and that has certainly proven to be true,” Cooper said this week during an interview at the new Community Connection office at the Meadowview senior citizens housing complex in Ellsworth.

In addition to the free office space provided by the apartment complex owners, Cooper has received donations from businesses from Bangor to Down East trying to help the new group get established.

The group has received a $25,000 startup grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which sponsors Faith in Action efforts across the nation.

Part of the requirement for the foundation’s support is to build a coalition of community groups and churches to assist the effort. That part has been accomplished, Cooper said, with 25 diverse groups – from hospitals to municipalities to the YMCA – signing on.

Now the group needs volunteers to make the effort successful, Cooper said. It also must raise about $20,000 before next spring as matching money for the initial foundation grant.

“I think there is a big need for that type of service” in Hancock County, Carol Higgins, spokeswoman for the Eastern Agency on Aging in Bangor, said Wednesday.

EAA serves much of Down East, but offers no similar services, Higgins said.

“Faith in Action has always been a good program,” she said. “Anything that gives services to seniors is a good thing.”

Eleanor West, director of community services for the Washington-Hancock Community Agency, said many Hancock County residents don’t qualify for WHCA services but need them.

Because WHCA receives federal and state funding, only income-eligible residents can be served.

“We don’t like to leave them with nothing, so we refer them to the Salvation Army, Red Cross or churches,” West said Thursday of people who can’t get help under current programs.

“At this point, I don’t know of anybody who has a program for those folks,” she said.

Anyone who wants to volunteer for the Community Connection program or to make a donation can call Cooper in Ellsworth at 664-6016 or write to her at P.O. Box 5072, Ellsworth 04605.

Donations should be made to Downeast Health Services, which is acting as Community Connection’s fiscal agent until the new group receives its federal tax-exempt status. That will ensure that donations are tax-deductible, Cooper said.