York County Community Foundation recently awarded a $40,000 grant from its Embracing Aging initiative to Servants Inc to expand its Home Helps Program in York County. This program, which began in 2007, provides home repairs and maintenance services for homeowners with financial need in York County. A vast majority, 80 percent, served by the program are older adults who are able to live independently and safely in their homes because of the help they receive from Home Helps.
“Thanks to the generosity of the Hahn Home Fund, this grant is among the first of the high-impact grants we’ll see from our Embracing Aging initiative,” said Cathy Bollinger, Managing Director of Embracing Aging. “We recently announced our new grant program for 2015, and we look forward to granting up to $100,000 more this year on creative programs and services that will help make York County a great place to age.”
While home repairs are the priority of the Home Helps program, it offers other benefits. Most of the program’s construction volunteers are older adults who are trained on how to spend time with the homeowner during the repair process to offer comfort, confidence, and build a relationship, which helps the homeowners feel less isolated. In addition, Home Helps program staff work hard to understand the needs of their clients so they can refer additional services that go beyond home repairs. Home Helps has mutual referral relationships with the York County Area Agency on Aging, Lutheran Social Services, and a variety of senior centers, school districts, and food/clothing banks.
Trent Davis, founder and executive director of Servants Inc, expects the Embracing Aging grant to greatly increase the capacity of the Home Helps Program. “The Community Foundation’s grant will give us the ability to increase our Home Helps staff, who work directly with our volunteers and homeowners in York County,” said Davis. “This will help us leverage more volunteers to address the critical home modification, maintenance and repair needs of the growing older adult population in our community.”
Davis said the grant could increase the number of projects for older adults by 25 percent, while increasing new volunteers by 15 percent for a total volunteer force of about 500. Currently the Home Helps program services about 110 homes with most of its volunteers over the age of 50.
York County Community Foundation’s Embracing Aging initiative is leading the way to make York County a great place to age. To learn more details about the 2015 Embracing Aging Grants program visit http://www.yccf.org/Embracing_Aging_Grants. The deadline to apply is 5 pm, February 13, 2015.
