For Nondrivers, Volunteers Offer Just the Remedy

It’s a Wednesday afternoon in Fullerton, and the separate worlds of Flo Schremp and Mildred Lage are about to merge.

Schremp has a car. Lage does not. Lage needs to be somewhere by 1:45 p.m. Schremp does not.

In a marriage of need and charity, Schremp will drive Lage the 11 miles round-trip from Lage’s modest single-story home in east Fullerton to a medical laboratory north of the city center.

It’s a simple premise, this matching of volunteer drivers and those who, for reasons of age or infirmity, cannot drive. And in the greater scheme of things, it’s easy to overlook this basic need for someone to get from one place to another.

Unless, of course, you’re the one who needs the ride.

Schremp, 78, has spent the last 16 years ferrying strangers around Fullerton through the local Friends in Service Here program, or FISH, a loosely organized international group that relies on mostly retired volunteers to help those who can’t drive get to doctor’s appointments, medical labs for tests, and the occasional grocery store.

Each FISH group operates independently and on a shoestring budget. A few groups are able to pay administrators to raise money, maintain records and juggle the schedules of those willing to drive and those needing rides. But in Fullerton, where the FISH organization dates to 1972, one person works part-time to coordinate the schedule, but the other staffers all are volunteers. The group has an annual budget of only about $12,000.

It’s a simple program. Fullerton residents who need rides, almost exclusively for medical treatment, call a central number--(714) 533-3113--and put in a request. Each day, one of about 30 volunteer dispatchers agrees to field the phone calls, which are forwarded to their home phones. The requests are then matched against a list of about 60 drivers and assignments are made.

“There are about 50 people on our list right now that we consider active clients,” said Jim Patrick, 77, a retired Rockwell project manager in his third term as president of the Fullerton group. “It varies during the course of the year. We may serve on the order of 200 different people.”

For Schremp, joining the fleet of volunteer drivers seemed a natural family progression. Her mother and other family members of the generation before her were active volunteers in myriad groups.

“When they all died, it just seemed like the logical thing to do,” said Schremp, a former elementary school teacher.

The FISH drivers encounter a wide range of people in their duties, from the mentally ill to the physically infirm. The shop talk can be interesting, Schremp said.

“There are some people,” Schremp admitted, “that some [volunteers] won’t drive.”

But those clients are few and far between, she said.

“We don’t tend to get fussy people,” Schremp said. Some clients are demanding, but “I can’t think of a single one of these people who aren’t thankful. And that makes a big difference, when you have people who appreciate it.”

On a recent Wednesday, Schremp had been assigned to drive three people to appointments. Lage was the first, and a little after 1:30 p.m. Schremp pulled into a worn concrete driveway between two manicured lawns.

This was only the second time Lage had called the FISH hotline. The first time didn’t turn out so well. The driver forgot he was volunteering that day and never showed up, forcing Lage to summon her son from work for a last-minute lift.

“I understand that happens,” Lage, 81, said as she settled gingerly into Schremp’s front passenger seat. “The world didn’t come to an end.”

As the car nosed through traffic, Schremp and Lage chatted like seatmates on an airplane, offering short biographies and highlights of family. Lage’s son lives with her but works servicing computers and can’t drive her to appointments. Schremp, married to a retired Chevron engineer, has four grown children.

Lage, a retired executive secretary, hasn’t driven in nearly 20 years, ever since a doctor told her that weakness in her neck could lead to paralysis in the event of an accident. Since then, arthritis has exacerbated her problems and she walks tentatively. But she’s alert and retains a lively sense of humor.

“I used to take cabs,” Lage said a little later as she waited to have blood drawn for a lab test. But one cold, windy day, she says, the cab didn’t show up to retrieve her from the doctor’s office. She began calling everyone she knew to try to find a lift. Finally the cab did arrive, the driver blaming a computer problem for the foul-up.

“That turned me off cabs,” Lage said flatly.

By 2:15 p.m. on this Wednesday, Schremp was back in Lage’s driveway, helping her negotiate the short walk to the door, then making sure she was safely inside. It took a minute because Lage had trouble getting the key into the lock. Finally the door swung open. After an exchange of thank-yous and goodbyes, Schremp slipped back behind the wheel and took off for the next pickup, a man named Ron who needed to be dropped at his weekly session with a psychologist in north Anaheim.

It’s a largely unsung role that Schremp and her fellow drivers play, so much so that recruiting new drivers is a constant struggle.

As she makes her rounds this day, Schremp ruminates on the thin line between being healthy and falling ill. She mentions her brother-in-law, who recently suffered a stroke.

Schremp navigates these deep topics lightly as she touches on her own age and the love she and her husband share for travel.

She talks of the need to make plans and forge ahead and just hope and pray that you’re hale enough when the time comes to make the trip.