Senior Companions client Ray Boggs (left) and volunteers Candace Johnson and Judi Bailey share a laugh at the South Puget Sound Office of Lu- theran Community Services Northwest in Tacoma, Wash. They met to share how Senior Companions has helped Boggs get rides to a better food bank and to parks, but also has helped Johnson and Bai- ley find friendship and give back to the community.


her apartment I don’t know how many times,” she said. Volunteers can’t take it personally. Lutheran Community Services


Northwest has about 25 senior compan- ions. Julie Kerrigan, the agency’s Senior Companions director, said she could use many more. “We have so many more cli- ents than there are volunteers,” she said. Tat’s especially true in more rural areas. Senior Companions directors say


they sometimes wish volunteer require- ments were less restrictive in terms of age and income level, adding that college students would fit well into the helper role. But that’s the way it’s always been in this long-standing program. Funding is modest. Lutheran Com-


munity Services Northwest’s annual budget for administering Senior Com-


she said of the volunteers. Perhaps it’s someone who prefers people to privacy,


such as volunteer Candace Johnson, 66, of Tacoma. “Before Senior Companions, I spent a lot of time in front of my TV and staring out of my window and being lonely,” said Johnson, who gets by on $740 a month. Te stipend for volunteers is $2.65 an hour, but that


amount makes a difference for Johnson, who uses it to buy gas to take her clients places and for $5 movie tick- ets so they can have some enjoyment. Tey go to thriſt stores or out to lunch in her worn Ford Taurus, and sometimes return home to play Scrabble or UpWords. “It makes me feel happy for them to get them out


of the house, and it makes them happy for myself,” she said. “I just wanted companionship and outings.” Senior companions work 15 to 40 hours a week and


can have one or several clients. Tey don’t cook, clean or give baths like in-home caregivers. Te matches don’t always work. Bailey recalled one she had briefly before Boggs. “She threw me out of


panions is $250,000. Te four nonprofits in Washington that administer the program annually receive $887,000 together, Franklin-Temple said. Funding at the national level has been “pretty much stagnant for a very long time,” she added. Tat’s despite the nation’s aging and a 65-plus popu-


lation that will spiral from 13 percent of the population in 2009 to 19 percent in 2030, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. So considering everything, Boggs is getting along


pretty well, in no small part due to Bailey and the Senior Companions program. And vice versa too. “It’s extraordinary


… and I look forward to seeing Ray,” Bailey said. “I tolerate her,”


Boggs grumbled.  February 2015 31


Author bio: Pritchett is a retired newspaper journalist who lives on Bainbridge Island, Wash.


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