We Need A Central Source To Find Volunteer Opportunities For Early Stage AD

3. Volunteer Coordination: We need to put together a central source to find volunteer opportunities for Early Stage AD where they can be directed to do volunteer work in the range of their respective ability.

I keep saying the foregoing never getting to the point of it. What seems to be a cut and dried topic is so full of ideas of what we need I couldn’t help myself but recite them. Now it is time a cut to the chase!

The foregoing point # 3. was a proposal in my paper I presented nationally and have since been touting locally. It is entitled: Programs Of Support For Esad. It can be read by clicking on it and going to it described in an earlier post or by copying the web address to the window for WebSite Addresses at the top of your browser. That address is:

http://im-mike.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-have-recently-been-appointed-to.html

As a proposal it includes five suggested activities that would in my opinion be more than helpful for us. There are many more. This one, Volunteer Coordination, could be so helpful and so simple to do.

Here is how:

A “Power that Be” assign a worker drone this task.

1. Make a list of difficulty that Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) folks generally contend with in their day to day otherwise functional lives. Include such things as many cannot drive, need to take Metro Mobility, many can ride the bus, and the ability to move about on their own without losing there way. They come off pretty normal cuz that is what they are.
1. Give them a task, with detailed instructions how to perform it, one they can focus on easily and put them to work.
2. Place them with other people with dementia, volunteering, if for not other reason than the company, camaraderie and joy of being together. They will be there every time.
3. Although they are quite capable do not give them a task that they are solely responsible for another. There is often no danger in this but an insurer for the volunteer supervising authority might howl.
2. Make a second list of all businesses, services, medical, social and service agencies that might need help and benefit from volunteers to do it.
1. Get on the phone, send out an email, don’t text, ask: “Can you use any of our pool?” With this be sure to explain the benefit to them, the safety in it for them and the service it would be to the people on you are seeking to place.
2. Discuss with them the service for which your pool could volunteer the safety to them and to the volunteer organization in carrying it out.
3. Set up a program with each volunteer organization defining in detail what the program entails, how it would be done, how many needed at a time, the working space or place and the person in charge of them with a good description making sure they understand who they are working with, what they need and what they can do.
3. Make a third list of people interested in volunteer placement. Determine from the list the people with an interest and a desire to go to whatever volunteer organization is most suitable for them and do the volunteer task assigned them and set it up

Voilà; Fait accompli! Oui’?

For all the reason stated in the preceding post, what a wonder it would be to have such a service with widespread availability. It satisfies so many of the needs we have, enhances our quality of life in having it, and it will undoubtedly make life sufficiently enjoyable and interesting to hang around in a state of functionality just as long as we can.

Compare this to the life to which we are relegated by diagnosis.

We come home, coming out of shock we tell others. A benign but black cloud forms over us. This cloud points us out as different: “You know he has Alzheimer’s.”  The stereotype of what we are makes us difficult to be around, we can’t keep up, we lag in conversation, miss the context of what is said, and repeat what we say too often.

It takes very little time before friends, family, so many of those once close, drift away. They do it as if by default. They don’t know what to say when with us, so they put off being with us. They feel guilty for putting a visit off. Sooner as later they are embarrassed by the lapse of time since they have seen us. That is when they passively let us go.

The activities we once did are no longer that available. It is either transportation, lack of energy, lack of companions, a whole variety of reasons we let go of things we did.

We find comfort being among folks like us. We don’t have to explain ourselves, make excuses, try to come off normal, try to keep up, all of which drain our energy.

Having a place to go, something worthwhile to do that is of help to another offers a golden opportunity. It gives depth and meaning to the new life we live.

We can’t do this for ourselves, which is so for many of us, myself included. Would it be so hard for someone else to step in and get the job done for us?