It’s National Volunteer Week and we want to take the time celebrate our volunteers. 
SRC’s volunteers are crucial to fulfilling our mission to help older adults age at home as long as possible. The volunteers support older adults and are also often older adults themselves, helping create the community where they would like to age. All our volunteers are making our community a great place to call home at any age.
Volunteers make a big difference and the numbers help tell the story. Last year (2015), we added 77 new volunteers, who were part of a grand total 492 volunteers helping seniors through various programs. (Find out more about our volunteer programs.) Our volunteers logged an impressive 39,000 hours helping older adults.
The real evidence of impact, however, is in the individual stories of the people the volunteers help. Some great examples:
The ability to age at home
This winter SRC volunteers installed a ramp for a stroke victim. If the family did not get a ramp installed, this person would have had to stay in a nursing home. Because of our amazing volunteers and the Wheat Ridge Rotary this family was able to stay together and the person was able to go back to the place he loved – home.
Basic dignity & independence
A severely disabled senior in Golden called requesting a grab bar in his bathroom. Because of his disability he was not able to take a shower safely, even with assistance. SRC volunteers headed out and installed grab bars in the shower “revolutionizing” his life, in his own words. He said, “For the first time in months I am able to wash my toes”.
Friendship and connection
Another client wrote in saying “My volunteer has given me back the ability to do the things I always used to do myself. I just do them through her. I count on her not only for assistance but for friendship. She is so dear to me. I hope she will continue forever.”
Filling a crucial need
During tax season we do taxes for almost 500 people of all ages, financial situations 
and ethnicities. This program provides clients with free tax assistance, enabling tax filing electronically or through the mail. SRC volunteers worked close to 1,500 hours in 2015 to file completed returns with the IRS and the Colorado State Department of Revenue.
Volunteers make the difference. It’s more than just physical assistance, but also creating community and friendship. And, everyone is the better for it – volunteers, those they help and the entire community that benefits from living in a place where we know we can age with dignity.
As President Obama said in his National Volunteers Week proclamation :
“Generations of these often unsung heroes — driven by their conviction that we all have a stake in each other — have lifted up those they know and those they do not, making our Nation and our world a better place.”
We couldn’t agree more!
Find out more about our volunteer programs.