Words can not fully describe how thankful we are for every volunteer who has braved mask wearing, physical distancing, and sweating through volunteer projects these last few months. For anyone who isn't familiar with NeighborLink Indianapolis, 95% of our work is done by volunteers. Seniors in Indianapolis who would face stiff fines and in some cases, risk losing their homes, are spared those incidents because of volunteers willing to give a few hours of their time to help. The following are just a handful of groups who have rolled up their sleeves and made a huge difference this year.
Students had a big project on their hands. A garage scraping, painting and yard clean up for one Riverside area senior. They took two days but whew, what a dynamic difference.
IU Health Nursing Team
We were blown away by this group of night-shift nurses who gave precious daylight hours to a senior on the west side. Lois had a large hole on either side of her back door making a huge accident waiting to happen. Hauling dirt from a mound in the yard to fill up this hole was one heck of a job but these men and women didn't shy away one bit. We completely agree with their workplace slogan of "The strength it takes."
Metro Ministry
This team of do-gooders weren't swayed by the tedious tasks of scraping paint off an old garage or collecting up brush, vines, weeds and debris from a yard on the east side of Indianapolis. They were demonstrating their beliefs by acting as the hands and feet in the community.
Indiana University School of Medicine
We loved watching this group of first-year med students stretch out and get work done. They were ready to get out of their homes and into the community, even if only for a few hours. Masks on and energy high, they finished up a garage painting and transformed a yard. The homeowner couldn't help but come outside and in complete amazement give them thanks for their work.
IU Health Infomatics Team
No painting birdhouses here. For this IU Health team, they chose helping a senior in need for their service day project. This group tackled a house painting project that came with defending themselves against a startled swarm of bees. (Thankfully the bees were taken care of an no one suffered stings). The team was able to swiftly paint the house and get it ready to be cleared of its citations for chipping paint.
Group of friends
This group of friends came together after finding us on IndyHub.org. Several were new to Indianapolis and found this to be a great opportunity to get out into the community for some good soul-feeding volunteer work and chatting with new friends. Within a few short hours this chipping-blue-paint house transformed into a clean tan thanks to this group.
We've had so many more volunteers this year who've joined Volunteer Teams and more still who have offered their skills in various trades. Though we'll be slowing down this year on projects, we certainly will kick it off early in 2021. Have a group you'd like to volunteer with? Let us know!
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