Nurturing Our Retired Citizens		Replication Guide

Chore Day

Mission

To provide yard care and simple chores to seniors living in their homes to help them age in place for a longer time. To involve other members of the community in the issues facing seniors and in being a solution.

Program Description

Chore Day was a collaborative effort of a variety of community organizations to provide yard care to frail seniors or disabled adults in the community. Connections were also made to other community services as needed.

Project Goals Met

• Initiate an outreach program to connect seniors and their families to the available services in the community.
• Encourage and support intergenerational interaction.
• Encourage neighbor-to-neighbor activities
• Develop a collaborative mechanism to identify service gaps, coordinate programs and avoid duplication

Project Leadership

In the beginning, the NORC Community Liaison coordinated efforts of the community participants. Eventually the leadership was handed off to another service agency, but NORC continued to be a collaborative partner.

Impact

Chore Day was held twice a year and about 50 residents were helped each time. This reduced isolation for seniors and promoted understanding of the needs of the community by volunteers.

Planning Timeline

Before event:

• Six months in advance meet with partners
• Decide on chores to be done
• Design forms and flyers
• Design confirmation card
• Designate person to receive applications or phone calls and call or mail card to confirm receipt of applicatio

• Two months in advance
• Each organization should begin recruiting volunteers from within and ask them to save the date. Volunteers do not have access to the interior of peoples homes.
• Begin advertising about event in senior newsletters, put out flyers at senior center, library and other locations.
• One month in advance
• Meet again for all parties to finalize arrangements
• Designate person to receive applications and calls.
• Arrange for press coverage before, during and after the event
• Two weeks in advance
• Create database of applicants
• Confirm number of volunteers from each organization
• One week ahead
• Designate emergency person with cell phone for day of event.
• Prepare packets with information about sponsoring organizations
• Provide maps to each person’s home
• Arrange for people to bring necessary equipment, i.e. rakes.
• Purchase snacks for volunteers

Day of event

• Designate place and person for check-in at a central location
• Have maps available for easier distribution of tasks
• Have volunteers sign in and report back after finishing assignments
• Require that each organization have a contact person there during the time of the program, especially if students are involved.
• Take photos and get names and releases signed
• Have snacks available for volunteers
• Volunteers do not have interior access to peoples homes

After event

• Have meeting to evaluate the program
• Send photos and story to local newspaper
• Encourage participating organizations to send thank you notes to their volunteers.

PR Marketing & Dissemination

• Prepare flyer for senior center publication
• Distribute flyer to area agencies (senior center and library) and insert into local newspaper.
• Put ad in local paper two weeks in advance to encourage applications

Process and Outcomes

The Chore Day program began in the fall of 2003 under the leadership of the community Senior Program coordinator, two Rotary clubs and the NORC program. The local emergency food shelf was invited to participate, but they chose not to because they had a chore service through which people were paid. They did send some volunteers.

The Senor Program Coordinator, Rotary Representatives, School Representatives and the NORC staff met as a group and decided what services to offer. We initially offered a wide range of services, but discovered that was too ambitious. We decided to just rake lawns in the fall and prepare the lawns / gardens in the spring.

The spring of 2004 application reflects that change.

The NORC program provided the design of the flyers, took the applications, wrote the ads for the newspaper and paid for them. The Senior Program coordinator wrote the ads for her newsletter. Both the NORC project coordinator and the Senior Program coordinator worked as command central the day of the fall 2003 project. We learned that there needed to be a designated location where volunteers could register and return to at the end of assignments.

The local food shelf participated in the evaluation of the program and agreed to participate in future events. If the volunteers met at their facility and they were the lead agency, they could count all of the volunteers as theirs. This was important for their funding.

For the spring of 2005, the volunteers met at the local food shelf and were assigned several homes in the same area. They then returned to that location at the end of their task, and some took a further assignment. This worked quite well. In the fall of 2005, the emergency food shelf was the lead agency and the two Rotary clubs funded the project. In addition, a local church joined our efforts. In the future other groups such as the scouts might be included.

Budget

Summary

Chore Day presented an opportunity for various community organizations to work together to serve seniors with yard tasks. We streamlined the number of tasks offered while increasing the number of community organizations and volunteers participating. The number of people served remained about the same at about fifty. This program contributed to the age-friendly nature of our community.

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