Hurry Up Please: It's Time.

I love to garden in the mornings. The air is cool and the bugs are slow, too sleepy to bite. The dogs chase the trails of fox and coyote, rabbit and owl that canvass my backyard at night,and they roll in the bent grass of some creature's nocturnal bed.

The last few mornings, as I look for ripe tomatoes, bring in some ears of corn, check on the beets and measure myself against the giant sunflowers to confirm that indeed I am not getting shorter, the flowers are simply growing taller, I've noticed a certain nip in the air. One leaf at a time the aspen turn yellow.

Of course every day is a new day- but some days just feel newer than others.

CareConnect invites you to celebrate each new day by offering your time and compassion to older adults and people with disabilities in our communities. Please contact us to join one of our fine volunteer programs.

Interested in Yard Busters? Please call Rebecca.
Interested in Fix It? Please call Mary or Aaron.
Interested in Medical Mobility? Please call Allison or Elizabeth.
Interested in Carry Out Caravan? Please call Rebecca or Carolyn.

Interested in supporting our programs through a financial contribution? Please call Emily or Richard.

Other questions about how you can support CareConnect? Please call Jackie or Jan.

Please call our office at 303-443-1933 for access to all our great services and volunteer opportunities.

As for me: I'm off to new adventures and say good bye to the many incredible volunteers and staff I've had the great fortune to meet. Thank you.

- Until we meet again,
Maggie

Volunteer!

Boulder County CareConnect needs your help!!! We have an incredible group of volunteers and they want you to get involved too!!

Currently we have two major volunteer opportunities that need your help:

Medical Mobility: Spend some time with an older adult or person with a disability while driving them to their medical care related appointment. Who knows, maybe you'll meet someone who is as crazy about the Red Sox as you are or has the perfect recipe for strawberry rhubarb pie and is willing to share.

Best of all you'll know you are truly appreciated because you made it possible for someone to get the medical care they need.

Volunteers receive orientation, free supplemental liability insurance, mileage reimbursement and support. Please call Allison at 303-443-1933 ex 406 for more information about how you can be a Medical Mobility Volunteer today!

Is fun in the sun more your cup of tea> Call Rebecca or Aaron and learn more about volunteering with our new Yard Busters program!

Pull weeds (my favorite weed I love to hate is creeping Jenny) plant flowers, trim hedges, garden to your heart's delight and help older adults and people with disabilities keep their yards safe and beautiful year round. Call today (or in the morning). 303-443-1933 ex. 416 and have more fun in the sun.

p.s. you don't need a green thumb. Have some goats? Bring them along!

Meet Judy Cavcey

Meet Judy Cavcey

Judy loves “getting up on Monday mornings because I know I have someplace to go and that people are counting on me to be there.” Her destination most Monday mornings: The Our Center food pantry program. Judy has volunteered with the Our Center for over 24 years and has made a positive impact on thousands of individuals and families thanks to her volunteer service.

CareConnect would like to honor Judy Cavcey as the Volunteer of the Month for her long time commitment to helping the Longmont community through her volunteer service.


Ever since the OUR Center opened in 1987, Judy has been part of the dynamic volunteer team that helps low income individuals and families find resources and support. She has worn many hats while volunteering, including coordinating the agency Clothing Bank, but she currently volunteers as a Food Recorder, helping families needing food assistance find nutritious food that meets their dietary needs. According to Judy, “I know I’m doing something worthwhile. I never leave without knowing that I made a difference that day and helped somebody else with their struggles.”

In fact, according to Judy, volunteering with low income individuals and families makes her feel a renewed appreciation for her own life. Judy states, “it wouldn’t take much for any of us to be in the same boat as some of the people who turn to the OUR Center for help.”

Seeing the need in the community for food and emergency assistance has been really eye-opening. “What surprises me most is that more people my age, senior citizens, need food pantry food. Older people are really struggling now like we haven’t seen in the past,” Judy states.


Originally a microbiologist, Judy knew she had to get into volunteering once she retired. “It’s a great way to broaden your understanding of the world and meet a huge variety of people,” she points out.


“We have some life experience behind us, and it only makes sense to share it with other people while learning so much about others and making lifelong friendships.” Judy states: “I feel really blessed to be able to get involved.”
Volunteering continues to be a great way for Judy to express her appreciation for our communities.

As Judy mentions “Don’t ever hesitate to ask for help, and don’t ever hesitate to give to others.”

CareConnect celebrates Judy Cavcey’s commitment to serving families in Longmont and invites you to explore a wide variety of volunteer opportunities available through the RSVP program in Boulder County.

If you would like more information about volunteering with a great variety of nonprofit programs throughout Boulder County, please call our office at 303-772-2262 or 443-1933.

Who Ya Gonna Call?

YARD BUSTERS!!!

CareConnect has launched a new program and we invite you to join us in making our neighbors' yards and gardens beautiful, safe and bountiful.

Unleash the inner gardener/groundskeeper/ park ranger/ landscaper/ poet/ naturalist/ earth mother/father in you. You know you have it in you. You know you want to spend more time outside soaking up that vitamin D, surrounded by the bird calls, savoring the color green.

Maybe your own yard is perfect, maybe your crops are in. Maybe you live in a modern condo or apartment and your potted figs just are NOT enough. You can have more. You can be in the sun, feeling the cool spray of a summer hose, You can be a volunteer.

Our goal is to help older adults and people with disabilities enjoy their yards and gardens without tripping over broken branches, without worrying about how to get their grass mowed, without that wistfulness that comes with having a garden plot but seeing it wither with nothing but creeping Jenny and a tumbleweed.

Imagine it. Your yard just gets a bit too much to handle. Surgery. Glaucoma, MS, COPD, AIDS, cancer, creaky knees. The winds knocked a couple branches down. You meant to plant some sweet william and that packet of four o'clocks, but you just couldn't find the energy or can't bend down and sink your hands in the dirt like you still want to. The grass grows high, turns brown, gives way to the thistle, blows off in the dry wind.

I thought about that on Saturday. I was thinking about what a shame it was that the poppies and Iris have lost their bloom. I was reaching in to a little dark corner of who knows what under a butterfly bush, fearful of slugs and snakes, when it struck me that someday I won't be agile enough to be on my hands and knees, covered in grass clippings and bits of weeds.

Some day, if I live a loooong life, I won't be able to dig deep to plant this new heather or bend down low enough to snip my oregano. I'll miss the smell of lavender fresh on my fingers.

If I'm lucky I will have my friends and family to call on to lend a hand. Maybe some nice neighbor kids will move next door and offer to mow the lawn.

But what if I have to draw the curtains against time: what if I can't bear to see what has been robbed of me? What if I lose the color green to the wind and the weeds?

I hope I can count on Yard Busters. Just like I hope older adults and people with disabilities looking out at their yards today can count on you.

Let them count on you to lend a hand because in the small pleasures of the garden we can travel to distant lands, we can turn back time, we can let the scent of one rose carry us all the way back to a stolen kiss under a maple tree.

So. Enough about kissing. There is yard work to do.

Please call Rebecca or Maggie to become a Yard Buster volunteer in Boulder County. We'll put you to work for a good cause and you won't regret the sun on your back and the dirt on your hands.

Call us: 303-443-1933

photo: Maggie's favorite wheelbarrow.

Meet Dave Becker!!

Dave Becker began volunteering with CareConnect’s Fix-It program two years ago. Dave also recently volunteered to share his experience at CareConnect’s annual luncheon event “Celebrating the Ages.”

CareConnect is pleased to honor Dave Becker as Volunteer of the Month for his ongoing dedication and commitment to the Fix-It program and its many clients who depend on him.

“This is the best job I’ve ever had!” says Dave. “Once or twice a week I get an email from CareConnect explaining a client’s problem or need and asking if I would like to help. If I’m busy, not in the mood or just don’t want to take it, I say so. But the clients are so interesting, and the work is so much fun, I can’t remember the last time I turned one down.”

The Fix-It program has 52 handy volunteers providing minor home repairs for hundreds of seniors and adults with disabilities in Boulder County. Volunteers are available to install grab bars, fix a leaky faucet or broken TV, provide weatherization services and much more!

“Boulder County offers so many opportunities for volunteering,” says Dave. “For me, working with my hands fixing things and helping folks is the perfect mix, and that’s why I love Fix-It. Most of our clients would much rather take care of themselves than ask for a hand. But when you’re disabled or getting up there in years, sometimes you just need some help.”

Dave recently helped a young man who had broken his back when the stairway outside his apartment collapsed. With some modifications to his bathroom door, and a slew of grab bars, Dave made sure that he was able to get in and out of his bathroom and shower.

Not only does he provide excellent repair work, Dave is also there for his clients whenever they need him. “One of my clients, an elderly woman who dearly hopes to continue living in her home as long as possible, calls me from time to time when she can’t remember how to get a picture on her television. I’m able to help her right over the phone!”

CareConnect is thankful for Dave’s kindness and generosity. To sum up his volunteer experience, Dave says: “I love Fix-It because I can keep having fun going out to people’s homes and fixing things!”

To learn more about volunteer opportunities with CareConnect, please call 303-772-2262 or visit www.careconnectbc.org.

Vote for CareConnect and help support our Medical Mobility program

Help Us Win $5,000! Vote CareConnect for The NOVA Award!

Vote online between June 5-11 for CareConnect's Medical Mobility Program.
1. Click on the blue box entitled "2011 NOVA VOTING"
2. Read the nominee summaries
3. Choose 5 nominees and rank them
4. Make sure to rank Medical Mobility #1!
5. Forward this email to friends and family!

Please use this link: http://www.commfound.org/nova/2011

What is the NOVA Award?

The NOVA Award honors innovation in programs/services or innovations in business operations, within Boulder County's non-profit sector. The NOVA Awards will be presented this year at Community Ventures on July 29, 2011.

Medical Mobility started in partnership with Special Transit in 2008 to provide volunteer-escorted rides to medical appointments for seniors and adults with disabilities. Sign up to volunteer for Medical Mobility!

"I was nervous to get injections for macular degeneration but the volunteer comforted me. The gentleman was wonderful, we laughed the entire time. Laughing keeps me going, I hope I can laugh the rest of my life. Bless your hearts, I love this service."

-Dorothy, Medical Mobility Client


Thanks!

Come One, Come All

CareConnect invites you to get the most out of summer ( yes I know it is still technically spring- but the sun is blazing!) AND join our group of incredible volunteers.

It's hard to describe the work these individuals do without falling into the cliche trap- but all of the superlatives do apply in that each volunteer makes an incredible difference in the lives of older adults and people with disabilities EVERY DAY.

Whether a volunteer installs a grab bar and prevents a potentially fatal fall, or a volunteer drives someone to dialysis, or delivers nutritious groceries to someone who hasn't been able to leave their home in many years, CareConnect volunteers make the impossible possible by sharing their time, talent and love with the rest of us.

SO- make your summer even brighter by finding out how you can join our (fill in all the positive superlatives you know) group of CareConnect volunteers.

Right now our most urgent need is Medical Mobility drivers: especially volunteers who are willing to drive to hospitals and medical centers in the Denver area.

Please call us at 303-772-2262 to volunteer!