Rewards of service plentiful, The Washington Times
Read about Inez Russell and Friends for Life in Rewards of service plentiful in the Washington times.
Thank You
To thank the people who make our work possible, we put their names on the recognition walls in our building. Read more
We want you on our wall!
Last fall, Robin Jeep and Daniel Pecheco began working with us to create healthy, delicious food for the clients in our adult day care center. The food was so great that we all decided to make it available to the Waco community — nutritious, yummy food to go and the profits benefit the work we do to help the elderly and people with disabilities in Texas. Waco Today wrote about us in their magazine this month. The specials are listed on the Forever Yum button at the top of this page and you can call 772-8100 ext. 152.
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Our clients truly enjoy Story Time each day. We are so thankful to our volunteers who give so graciously of their time to read to them on a daily basis. Click here to see more pictures.
Ida might have been our very first volunteer. I think she was 76 when she started volunteering with us. She adopted six grandmas in our Adopt a Grandparent Program. She was older than all of them. One of the ladies she adopted hadn’t spoken since she was 18 years old. Ida came by the office one day so excited to tell me she had found a way to communicate with her new friend – one blink for ‘yes’, two blinks for ‘no’.
This amazing lady made corsages one year for every woman in every nursing home in the county. She volunteered with us even after she was admitted to a nursing home herself. She visited other residents, called people in our Telephone Reassurance Program and taught others how to make craft items and gifts. Sadly, we lost Ida before we moved into our new facility. When I visited her in the hospital, she would say, “tell me again about the center — tell me what it will be like.” Then she would close her eyes and I would tell her all about it.
Ida was a tiny lady with a huge heart and I think I will always miss her.
She was 96 years old and determined to continue living in her own home and counting on us to help. A young Baylor student visited her and fell in love with her and in helping she was excited to discover she could repair a screen door.
This precious widow called us almost daily because she was legally blind and wanted us to read the Bible to her. One day she called and said, “I am so hungry for peach cobbler.” We took her some and she called later and said happily, “do I sound like I’m full of peach cobbler?”
We told one of our elderly guardianship clients that we never show anyone their pictures to protect them and to insure confidentiality.
She gave us this picture and said, “Show this. No one will know it’s me.”
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Today one of our clients declare that our chef, Kathy is the ‘best cook in the world’. That made her millennium.
He was a vet.
His family had locked him in a shed behind his house for years. He might have died in that shed, but one of his family members got mad at him and split his head open with a hoe. The family took him to the emergency room.
Police told us later they were sure the family would never have taken him to the hospital if they had been able to figure out how to continue to collect his retirement check if he died.
We were asked to be his guardian and we made sure he had a safe place to live and that his money went to him.
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We found an elderly widow sitting in the dark. she had moved from room to room as the light bulbs burned out. When the last one burned out, she was in the dark. We take for granted changing a light bulb, but for frail seniors it is dangerous and it can force them into a nursing home prematurely.
A volunteer that is willing to help with little things, like changing a light bulb, can make a big difference.
Every once in a while, Charlie calls to say how grateful he is to Friends for Life for the help we have given him. We have been working with Charlie for about 8 years now. He is a vet and he had so many problems, but in the past few years he has come to know the Lord. Now, he has the most amazing attitude in spite of the fact that he has lost both legs and has lived through lung cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer and other health problems. Through the years we have helped him manage his money. When he had a chance to buy a house a few years ago he called us. It took some time to get the payments reduced to a point where it was possible, but then Charlie was able to buy his first home. He is a good neighbor and he watches out for all the children. When a park was built in his neighborhood, they named it after Charlie. You can read about Charlie in this article by Aileen Loehr at the Fayette County Record. Charlie is such a happy guy and he gives all the credit to God.
