Neighborhood resident Helen West Rodriguez learned much about the needs of senior citizens, particularly those confined to nursing homes, through her work as a professor of gerontology at the University of Texas-Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.

And she came to believe that the most crucial need for many of these senior citizens is not food, clothing or medical attention, but companionship.

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After retirement, Rodriguez joined the board of directors at the Greater Lakewood Shepherd Center. And it wasn’t long before she brought the value of companionship to the attention of fellow board members and GLSC Executive Director Carolyn Dennis.

The result: the creation of Compassionate Companions, a program that pairs trained volunteers with new or lonely nursing home residents in our neighborhood. The program has been so successful that other organizations, businesses and churches throughout the region have been calling the Shepherd Center to learn more.

“It was her (Rodriguez’s) vision, her insight in seeing these needs as the basis of the program,” Dennis says.

“To have someone volunteer to do things like that is an enormous gift to the Center.”

It was not only Rodriguez’s ideas that fueled the creation of the program, but her experience in writing grant requests that lifted it off the ground. Initial funding was provided through a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

“Helen comes with all the skills and talents,” Dennis says. “We try to provide the community with models for successful aging, and Helen certainly fits that description.”

Many of the volunteers are Shepherd Center members. But a few are not even senior citizens. There is no age requirement to be a Compassionate Companion, only a dedication to the ideals on which the service was founded. Being a Compassionate Companion isn’t always easy, Rodriguez says. Volunteers must be patient and have good listening skills.

“It’s hard to listen to some older people because they have such long tales of woe,” she says.

“Some people feel abandoned by their families and some even by God.”

But on the whole, feedback from volunteers has been positive, she says.

“A lot of people don’t feel like they’re needed, and this makes them feel needed,” says Rodriguez.

“They (senior volunteers) become more aware of things that can happen to them; it’s helped build a lot of awareness.”

Rodriguez says she’s pleasantly surprised by the success of Compassionate Companions and its offshoot, Transition Teams, which is focused on helping senior citizens and their families weather transitions such as moving to a nursing home, writing a will or selling a house.

With a growing base of volunteers and a steady stream of new clients, Rodriguez’s vision has more than realized her initial expectations.

“I’m surprised at how many people have gotten involved,” Rodriguez says.

“A lot of people don’t want to go visit a nursing home. A lot of them (nursing homes) are not pleasant.”

“When they realize how much good it does, that gets them hooked.”

To find out more about the Compassionate Companions or Transition Teams programs, call the Greater Lakewood Shepherd Center at 214-823-2583.