93 frail elderly and adults with disabilities are enrolled in our Adult Day Care Center with between 75 and 80 coming each day now.  We provide nursing care, activities, nutritious food, transportation.  We currently serve breakfast lunch and a snack in the afternoon.

In Guardianship, we serve 320 people.  (We are appointed by the courts to serve as guardians in 39 counties in Texas when the judges determine that individuals don’t have capacity to make decisions for themselves and when there is no family member qualified and willing to serve.  We serve 261 people as Guardian of Person, 3 people as Guardian of Estate and 56 as Guardian of Person and Estate.)

442 are helped through our Money Management Program where we provide information, referral to other agencies, assistance with accessing services in addition to helping some make sure bills are paid, utilities remain on, etc.  Since those who need help with money management often need help with many other things, we work to make sure that they have the help they need.

We have 870 in our Independent Living Programs (We recruit, screen, train and organize volunteers to help people age in place.  They can stay in their own homes as long as possible.  With a little help through our Minor Household Repairs Program, Telephone Reassurance, Companion to the Doctor, and help changing light bulbs and mowing lawns, and other programs, many end up able to live out their lives at home.  And, these programs make it possible for us to build bridges between us and them so that when they have a problem like electricity being turned off or running out of medicine, they may call us and we can fix the problem while it is a small problem – before it becomes life threatening.)

This year we are reaching out to approximately 2,090 in our Quality of Life Programs (With programs like Adopt a Grandparent, Friendly Visiting, Pen Pals, Friends for Thanksgiving, and many more, we are helping lonely elderly and people with disabilities know they are loved.  Our Gifts for Grannies & Grandpas, too program reaches out to more than this, but it also provides gifts for people in our other programs who are alone and have no one to remember them on their birthdays and holidays.

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.

“Do you want that animal?”
“Why are you asking?”
“Because if you don’t want it, I do”.
“What do you want it for?”
“I thought I’d put it on my bed.”
“Well, go on, take it!”

The social worker said, “I have been by that man’s room several times this afternoon and each time I pass by I see him sitting on his bed hugging that little stuffed animal.”

I  gathered up everything I thought might turn into a corsage in the hands of someone had who knew how to make one.  I was trying to think of some way to explain that I had no money when the cashier at the register said, “Are you Inez Russell with Friends for Life?”  I managed to say ‘yes’ and he said, “there is someone here looking for you”.  He took me to find a lady who said, “I asked God this morning who to give this money to and He told me to come find you.”  With that, she handed me forty dollars and left.  I went back to the cashier and he rang up my flower parts.  The total was $39.94!

When I got back to the office, I poured out the contents of the sacks onto a table and I sat there staring at them. I looked up to see an elderly lady standing in the doorway. “What are you doing?” she asked. “I am trying to figure out how to make a corsage.” To my amazement, she said, “I love to make corsages. Can I help?” Several more ladies came that afternoon to help me make all the corsages and they even delivered them to the nursing home!

I sent a volunteer to see him. Later that day, she came by my office. She told me she had talked for two hours to him and had completely run out of things to say. Then he turned to her and asked, “Did you know my wife died?” She said, “Yes”. He started to cry. As he told her the whole story, they began a friendship that lasted many years.