HELP of Ojai Offers Array of Services for Seniors : Elderly: The agency gives its 500 volunteers a sense of accomplishment while providing social programs and an adult day-care center.

Since 7 a.m., the 76-year-old volunteer handyman has been chopping up and hauling away a 20-foot-long eucalyptus limb that crashed through a gazebo overnight.

Four hours later, sweat pouring off his brow and his yellow shirt soiled, the silver-bearded local priest says of his toil for HELP of Ojai: “It’s absolutely a blessing, because it gives you places to go and things to do.”

Although he was asked by his bishop 2 1/2 years ago to give 40 hours a week to HELP, Father David Grant swears that he isn’t working any harder than many of the other 500 senior volunteers who propel the nonprofit organization, one of the largest community service providers in Ventura County.

“There are a lot of people here who volunteer as much or more time than I do,” he said.

HELP of Ojai, which opened in 1968 with a handful of volunteers, runs a variety of year-round services geared toward senior citizens, the handicapped and others in need of social programs, Executive Director Marlene Spencer said.

HELP’s five vans travel around the Ojai Valley making about 2,500 round-trips per month. An estimated 250 senior citizens and handicapped residents are transported to and from its multipurpose center and adult day-care center, both next to Ojai’s City Hall. Another 250 or so are given rides for other activities and needs.

At the Little House multipurpose center, senior residents meet daily. They play bridge and bingo, learn computer skills, receive group counseling or take such classes as Spanish, creative writing, Oriental brush painting or hula dancing.

Across a small parking lot at the adobe-styled Oak Tree House day-care center, five paid staff members provide mental and physical stimulation for Alzheimer’s patients and other ailing senior citizens. It allows care-takers at home--often overburdened spouses--a chance to rest, project director Lynn Lewis said.

HELP also runs a food bank and offers counseling groups for residents of all ages.

Last year, HELP raised about $314,000--with only about $70,000 coming from federal and state grants.

The rest, Spencer said, was gathered from the community. About $95,000 was brought in at its 2nd HELPings Thrift Store in Ojai on Fox Street, and about $16,000 was collected through a utility bill collection service in which the organization keeps 30 to 35 cents per bill. The group also held three fund-raising community events, she said.

Spencer said HELP of Ojai’s senior center and adult day-care center are the only ones of their size in the county that are primarily funded by community donations.

“I think what we’re doing is unique because so much of the type of services we’re providing are usually provided by cities and / or parks and recreation,” she said.

“If you look at Thousand Oaks, they have a humongous senior center,” but it’s administered by parks and recreation. “But we are a nonprofit group providing the services here.”

In Ventura and Oxnard, senior citizen centers are also administered by recreation agencies, officials said.

The Ojai group can more freely engage in a variety of services, such as transportation, Spencer said, because it is less likely to be sued than government bodies.

“Cities run scared to do the type of things we do . . . (such as using) 35 to 40 volunteer drivers,” she said. “I think people look at what we do differently. It would be like biting the hand that’s feeding you if you sued us.”

Colleen House of the Ventura County Area Agency on Aging said HELP of Ojai is the only nonprofit group solely responsible for running a senior center in the county.

“They do an excellent job,” she said. “They have been in the vanguard for the county in testing and developing many new senior services in the last 15 years, such as their day-care center and their transportation for seniors.”

Spencer pointed out that the city of Ojai leases HELP its land for $1 and provides some money for the van services. About $46,000 of the $70,000 in grant money, she said, comes from the federal government for HELP’s service to people over 55 under the Retired Senior Volunteer Program.

Said Ojai Councilwoman Nina V. Shelley: “I don’t know what we do without it. . . . The city could not provide at this point in time--because of limited revenue--the services to the seniors in the community that HELP provides.”

Among other HELP services: Volunteers fill in for hospice caretakers, deliver meals for the home-bound, provide a security patrol for checks on homes of people on vacation, run Neighborhood Watch seminars and fingerprint schoolchildren.

“It’s been a lifesaver for me,” Jo Huber, 69, said as she drove back to the center in a specially equipped van after dropping off some lunch recipients. “My husband died suddenly about three years ago. We were married for 46 1/2 years. It’s pretty much my social life, I guess.”

Said Grant of Ojai’s Our Lady and All Angels Church, in between tasks at the center: “(HELP) treats Alzheimer’s patients, the invalid, the house-locked, the friendless--it’s an outreach program that services the silent need of a community.”

Many at HELP point to a large senior segment in the Ojai Valley and a communitywide spirit of helping as reasons for its success and its ability to recruit droves of hard-working volunteers.

“It’s the ambience of Ojai itself,” said 79-year-old Hope Baker, who helps iron the clothes donated to the thrift store each week. “The more you give, the more you get back.”

As the Mira Monte resident sprayed, ironed and creased a pair of purple slacks while chatting with four other volunteers, she added that the center keeps her busy.

“As we grow older, the more active we can remain, the better we are health-wise, both mentally and physically,” she said. “And doing something for someone else makes you feel good. It does so much for the community.”

Baker--a former retail manager who voluntarily directed the thrift store for 10 years and worked for the center’s old crisis hot line--said that for many retirees, caring for others and having social time at the center are a golden opportunity.

“Some of the people would have no other place to go,” she said, adding that HELP’s annual Christmas party can be the only holiday gathering for some. “What HELP does is it gives people the opportunity to experience a feeling of self-worth and contact with other people. We offer understanding and acceptance . . . camaraderie.”

Across the stark white ironing room, 82-year-old Mary DeVito works briskly, her hands worn from working for years in a Los Angeles steel factory.

“I didn’t know about this kind of thing--they don’t do this in L. A.,” said DeVito, who has been volunteering for various jobs at HELP since she retired to Ojai in 1978. “Everybody makes you feel at home, you know, like a big family.”

At Oak Tree House, state law requires one licensed paid staff member per eight senior citizens enrolled. But volunteers are also on hand to help out.

“This provides a group activity that the family can’t provide, and it also provides a respite for the care-givers (at home),” Lewis said as she watched a couple of staff members and about 15 senior citizens sit in a large semicircle playing Trivial Pursuit.

“What Kennedy was married to Ethel?” asked an elderly woman seated at the head of a table. “Robert,” answered a woman as other game players conferred softly while nibbling on cookies and sipping punch.

“Right!”

Said Lewis: “We are providing mental and social stimulation to help them function at a higher level. . . . It allows them to stay out in the community longer before they are put in nursing homes.”

Lewis added that many of the Alzheimer’s patients and others served at Oak Tree House used to volunteer for HELP. Some still believe that they are working when they come to the center, she said, giving them more self-esteem and purpose.

A short time later, the afternoon van returned to take game players home. For some of those who had to wait for the second or third trip, anxiety about leaving took over. To ease the tension, staffers broke out a giant inflated globe and had the seniors push it around on tables in a game of “table ball.”

“They can’t remember where they live and it’s a very stressful time, so this kind of distracts them,” Lewis said.

A week later, the same group members were back at Oak Tree House, where many come five days a week, learning how to create picturesque water-color paintings.

Georgia Maynard, 94, the oldest person in the room, who started with HELP as a volunteer, admired her purple-shaded painting of hot-air balloons.

“It’s a very enjoyable group, and I always find plenty to do,” she said. “It’s good for me; why wouldn’t it be good for others?”