Seniors Aid Seniors in Obscure Program : Social work: Low-income volunteers serve as part-time companions, helpers for those in need.

After 20 years as a school crossing guard, Fannie Norman has a new line of work. At age 72, she’s a companion to other senior citizens who have become frail and have trouble getting around.

“I thought I could help someone,” she said. “I just try to lift up their spirits.”

Norman is part of a little-known government program called Senior Companions. It pays token wages and expenses to about 13,000 low-income senior citizens who spend 20 hours a week with other seniors whose greatest need may be companionship.

In this holiday season, Norman helps her shut-in “clients” make Christmas wreaths. At other times, they might use Popsicle sticks to create wooden flowers.

“Or I tell them we’re going to get pretty today, doing their nails, fixing their hair, just talking,” said Norman, who moved to Indianapolis after she retired six years ago as a public school crossing guard in Chicago. “It lifts them up.”

The volunteers do not provide any nursing, but volunteers have called for emergency help after finding one of their clients in a bad way.

The volunteers’ services usually are less dramatic. Program officials cite the case of one woman, impaired by strokes, who was persuaded to play the piano again after she became friends with her companion. Or there is the case of an elderly man, a double amputee, who ended up teaching his volunteer helper how to read.

The motto for the 20-year-old program is “doing what friends do for friends,” and federal officials say that it has been very successful.

The yearly federal budget is around $30 million, with another $15 million or so from states, corporations and private foundations.

The program has been run by ACTION, the agency that oversees federal volunteer programs. President Clinton merged it into the new Corporation for National and Community Service.

“Our volunteers provide a vital service in helping to alleviate the overwhelming financial burden of health care and human services both for our participants and the community,” said Tom Endres, acting assistant director of the corporation’s National Senior Volunteer Corps.

“Both the volunteers and the clients maintain their self-esteem. No one is diminished.”

Federal officials say it costs about $3,700 a year to provide one volunteer, a little more than one-10th the average cost of nursing home care. The companions serve more than 32,000 people, providing activities that may include fixing meals.

Volunteers must be at least 60 years old and meet federal poverty standards--$8,715 a year in income for single people or $11,790 for couples.

The volunteers get paid about $50 a week tax-free, plus travel and meal money, accident and liability insurance and an annual free physical examination.

Helping others and gaining a sense of usefulness attract them to the work, they say.

“You become very fond of them,” said Dee Guy-El, 72, who has been working in the companion program since 1988.

Guy-El, who retired as a clerk from Loyola University in Chicago and then moved to Indianapolis, said she has been doing volunteer work practically all her life.

One of her clients “wanted to convince me I was old,” she said. “But it’s a state of mind. I know people 25 who are old.”