For residents of Harvard, going almost anywhere requires a car. So how does someone who can’t drive because of age or disability get around? For 45 years, one answer has been the volunteer group Harvard Help, which has driven people to doctor’s offices, grocery stores, banks, barbershops, and bridge games. But now a shortage of volunteer drivers is limiting the amount of service Harvard Help can offer.
“We really need more drivers—that’s the key point,” said Pat Edmonds, a longtime volunteer with Harvard Help and a member of its steering committee.
Founded in 1977 with the motto “Neighbors helping neighbors,” Harvard Help predates the Council on Aging’s van service by nearly 25 years. In its early years Harvard Help had more than 70 volunteers, according to a 1979 article in the Harvard Post. While two or three men were members of the steering committee, about 95% of the volunteers were women.
In the late 1970s, before Minuteman Home Care (as it was called then) began providing meals for the elderly, Harvard Help drivers delivered hot meals from the Bromfield School cafeteria to about 10 residents three times a week. That added up to an impressive 90 to 100 meals a month. After Minuteman began supplying Meals on Wheels, Harvard Help was the “wheels” for several years. At one time, the group offered residents even more forms of assistance, like emergency babysitting.
Drivers, answerers volunteered one day a month
The most enduring service Harvard Help has offered is free transportation. Originally, a volunteer signed up for one weekday a month, either as a driver or a telephone answerer. Members of the steering committee served as log keepers, writing down the rides that were scheduled week by week in a logbook.
Harvard’s then-local dispatch service was crucial to communication. A person who needed a Harvard Help ride called the dispatch number. The dispatcher in turn told the rider the phone number for the day’s answerer, who took down information about the caller’s trip—date, pickup time, and destination. All that information was logged and passed on to the scheduled driver for the day the caller had requested.
Even after the COA began offering van service in 2001, Harvard’s aging population needed more rides than one van could handle. Harvard Help continued to provide 20 to 25 rides a month, and often more.
COA becomes the communication center
When Harvard’s local dispatch service joined the Nashoba Valley Regional Dispatch District in 2013, the Council on Aging replaced the dispatcher in taking calls from people who needed rides. Eventually the COA also replaced Harvard Help’s answerers.
The new system was efficient, because it required only one phone call to the COA by the person who needed a ride. Still, it was also a sad transition. For some housebound people, being an answerer had allowed them to connect with the wider world. And many former Harvard Help drivers—as they aged—had become answerers. Even after they began to need rides themselves, they continued to contribute as volunteers.
Since the COA acquired a second van in 2019, it has been able to handle many more rides. But there are still times when both vans are fully booked. And at those times, the COA still turns to Harvard Help. Even during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Harvard Help continued to provide rides three days a week.
In the past few months, the number of ride requests has begun to tick upward again. But many volunteer drivers dropped out during the pandemic because of health concerns or because they themselves were getting older. Harvard Help’s list of drivers is far shorter now than at any other time in the group’s 45-year existence.
To continue supporting the COA and providing rides when the van schedule is full, Harvard Help needs more volunteers willing to set aside a couple of hours a month to drive those who can no longer drive themselves. As one volunteer explained, “I’m building karma for myself, for when I can’t drive anymore.”
To volunteer as a Harvard Help driver or for more information, call the Council on Aging at 978-456-4120.
He could really sing!
The best part of being a driver—as I’ve been for about 15 years—is meeting wonderful, interesting people. Phyllis Newman told me many stories from Harvard’s past while showing me some surprising back roads to Clinton, where she went to get her hair done. Nancy Dakin directed me turn by turn to the medical center in Worcester through scenic routes I could never retrace on my own.
During one memorable trip with Gus Lahanas, I received a phone call from my husband saying there was a tornado warning in our area. I asked Gus if he would prefer to wait at the medical office until the warning expired. Seriously ill though he was, he grinned and said, “I like new experiences!” So we headed home—and arrived safely.
Terri Knoettner, a charter member of Harvard Help, recalled driving Michael Henry. “He would sing at the top of his lungs,” she said. “He could really sing!”
Phyllis, Nancy, and Michael each put in years as Harvard Help answerers.
—Marty Green
