‘Caring Neighbors’ Eases Independence for Others

When her husband Robert was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer in October 1980, Lena Gibson toured several Ventura County nursing homes in hopes of finding a place where he would be well cared for.

She did not like what she found.

“They are very depressing,” Gibson said. “They all have an odor to them that turns you off. It’s just depressing to see so much sadness.”

She kept Robert in their Camarillo home until his death in October 1982 at age 73.

Today, Gibson is 76 years old and has her own serious health problems.

But a new program by the Thousand Oaks office of Lutheran Social Services is making it possible for low-income senior citizens and other handicapped residents to remain self-sufficient.

The “Caring Neighbors” program, supported by a $25,000 grant, provides volunteers to help those in need with their household chores, yardwork and transportation to the store and medical appointments.

“I couldn’t get along without” the program, said Gibson who deals with chronic pain from a broken back suffered in an accident nearly three years ago. The pain prevents her from cleaning and from lifting many objects in her one-bedroom apartment.

When her asthma flares up, Gibson refuses to drive her car, and has thus missed numerous doctor appointments over the past four years, she said.

One daughter, Pamula, lives in Thousand Oaks, where Gibson moved a dozen years ago. But a full-time job and a family that includes a mentally- and physically handicapped son limit her daughter’s spare time. Gibson’s other three daughters live several counties away.

Gibson said she can’t use a bus or the city’s “Senior Cab,” which provides rides anywhere in Thousand Oaks for 50 cents, because the smell of perfume or cologne from other riders aggravates her asthma.

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But the Caring Neighbors program, she said, has been a big help.

“If I don’t have them, I couldn’t keep my appointments,” she said.

Gibson said she no longer lives with the fear that she will have to move into a nursing home.

“The thought just tore me up,” Gibson said. “I want to be on my own.”

Sandie Moore, recently hired by Lutheran Social Services as the program’s director, said that the 30 people using the program value their renewed independence.

“Most of them are living alone, with no family in the area, no church affiliation and no neighbors they trust or know well enough to ask for help,” Moore said. “Our frail elderly and physically challenged should not have to stand on a street corner for a half hour waiting for a [bus].”

The 18-month grant is a one-time award from the New York-based Robert Wood Foundation, which Karen Ingram, vice president of Lutheran Social Services, said is the nation’s largest health-oriented charitable organization.

The money will mostly go to pay Moore’s part-time salary. She was hired in August to recruit and coordinate volunteers from local youth, church and civic groups to assist seniors.

“We’re looking at fund-raisers and community support to keep the program going,” Ingram said.

Other “Caring Neighbors” programs exist in Simi Valley and in Orange and San Diego counties.

Simi Valley’s program, which the Lutheran charity also coordinates, began shortly after the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Moore said she already has 18 volunteers to cover Conejo Valley residents and another 15 for Simi Valley .

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At the Simi program’s peak, 32 clients a month received services from a pool of up to 85 volunteers, Ingram said.

“Initially a lot of the requests came because they were earthquake-related,” she said, adding that the number of those asking for help dwindled to fewer than two dozen per month.

In the year before Moore was hired, staff member J.R. Jones headed “Caring Neighbors” along with his regular duties as the agency’s job development officer.

The pool of volunteers fluctuates constantly, depending on the number of clients needing services, and the enthusiasm of the volunteers, Ingram said.

Lutheran Social Service’s 15 volunteers serve six to eight clients a week, Moore said.

Consequently, Moore is on a major recruiting effort--looking for people like Chitra Chandavarkar, a Thousand Oaks resident who recently signed on.

Chandavarkar reserves two to four hours each Friday to help the disadvantaged. Setting aside time in service to your community is something her father, a doctor, ingrained in her as a child growing up in Bombay, India, she said.

“I feel more involved in the community that way,” Chandavarkar said. “I like to help people. Somehow I feel I’m helping myself.”

Her duties mainly consist of driving clients, including Gibson, to food stores and doctor’s appointments.

Chandavarkar, a part-time professor of computer information systems at Cal State Los Angeles, said she would not shy away from helping one of the program participants with light housecleaning.

“This is part of life,” she said. “There is a need and I am responding to it.

All volunteers are carefully screened, according to Moore, who periodically runs errands when no volunteer is available.

“We have more requests than we have volunteers for those requests,” she said.

Anyone interested in volunteering or joining the program should call 497-6207.