Community Impact Stories

Seniors Helping Seniors: Volunteering at FSA

Twice a week or so, John, a trim man in his late 70s, walks from the quiet Noe Valley flat he shares with his wife, Phyllis, to a newsstand manned by his client, Fred (a pseudonym). What do they do? Well, it’s simple. “I’ll spend some time with him on the corner, talking. Maybe we’ll go for coffee. I don’t have a schedule with him, because he’s not very good with schedules. So we just chat.”

However simple it seems, the relationship’s effects are profound. Fred, John explains, “has some mental disabilities. And he’s what they call a ‘hoarder’; he collects everything. It used to be hard to walk into his apartment, there was so much stuff. He didn’t have any room to sleep, and he could barely get into the bathroom. But, eventually, I managed to get PASS to help put some of his stuff into storage. It sounds like a small change, but now he has a place where he can lie down. And he has a friend.”

“The goal is just to have a relationship,” Phyllis, 74, chimes in. Sometimes, getting that relationship started is the hard part. When Phyllis first met her client, Matilda (a pseudonym) was in respite care for the physically ill, at a homeless shelter. “They called her the Mystery Woman. She was very polite, but she didn’t want to talk at all. And I thought, If the goal is to have a relationship, this is going to be a little tricky. But I went to visit her every week, anyway. She wouldn’t talk about anything personal, but we started talking about the movie stars of the ’40s. She was 79, I was 74, and I think the age thing was a plus.”

In the year since, Matilda has blossomed. “When we used to walk to the library, I would say hello to people. And she would say, ‘Is that how you do it? That’s how you talk to people?’ Then recently, this woman came up to her and said, ‘Hello, Matilda,’ and Matilda said, ‘Phyllis, this is my friend Dorothy, and Dorothy, I’d like you to meet Phyllis.’”

Phyllis’s face lights up as she continues. “Seeing her change just makes me feel good. There’s a joy in watching her introduce me to her friend. At the beginning, she could hardly operate. Now, she even has a boyfriend on another floor! It’s like the whole world opened up to her.”

Speaking for both of them, John concludes, “I think we both get a lot of satisfaction from PASS. Phyllis and I have been pretty fortunate, and it feels great to help other older people make their way to fuller lives.”