April 4, 2024 • 42 mins
Great Community Give is a community wide giving day for local partner nonprofit organizations, April 17, 2024 from 6:00am to 8:00pm. All online donations this day will be through www.greatcommunitygive.org and/or given directly via cash and check gifts. All donations are tax-deductible.
We are joined by: Valley Program for Aging Services' Beth Bland, Executive Director, and Joyce Nussbaum, Director of Senior Services, Harrisonburg-Rockingham County.
VPAS is the premier organization in the Central Shenandoah Valley for supporting successful aging in place. The VPAS staff are your local experts in aging. Whether you are approaching retirement, or well beyond, their staff can help you navigate the joys and challenges that come with aging and caregiving. Once accessed, VPAS provides a supportive network to assist you as your needs may change over time.
We are joined by: Valley Program for Aging Services' Beth Bland, Executive Director, and Joyce Nussbaum, Director of Senior Services, Harrisonburg-Rockingham County.
VPAS is the premier organization in the Central Shenandoah Valley for supporting successful aging in place. The VPAS staff are your local experts in aging. Whether you are approaching retirement, or well beyond, their staff can help you navigate the joys and challenges that come with aging and caregiving. Once accessed, VPAS provides a supportive network to assist you as your needs may change over time.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Shanando A Valley. Business Break isa podcast about local business and community happenings
and and around the Shenandoah Valley ofVirginia. And I'm Chris Carmichael and we
are joined today by Amanda bomb famAmanda is the director of Marketing and Initiatives
for the Community Foundation of Harrisonburg andRockingham County. You are in charge of
the Great Community Give, which isa week and a half away now to
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no less than two weeks, yes, coming up on Wednesday, April seventeenth,
Yes, exactly. Yeah, wehave a little under two weeks to
go. And I'm really excited becausenow we're in the early giving stage of
the Great Community Give campaign and I'mexcited to share with you, Chris,
that I'm starting yesterday right nonprofits we'reaccepting donations online or cash and checks received
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directly to their offices. And asof this morning, I did a double
check, they've raised twenty thousand sofar, really in the first twenty four
hours. Yes, and fifty sevenlocal nonprofits are participating in this year's Great
Community Give. This is the seventhGreat Community Give, and so I love
the repetition of sevens everywhere in thiscampaign. So we've got one hundred and
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fifty seven and we've got a lotof fun with the number seven, whether
it's the prizes or the hours thatare on the day of. So stay
tuned. So what's the process ifI'd like to give? So that's a
great question. If you would liketo give online, you can go to
Great Community give dot org and youcan search among the one hundred and fifty
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seven nonprofits and find one that speaksto you, find causes that mean something
to you and your passion and values, and connect with them by giving at
least seven dollars or more, orif you prefer to give cash and checks
directly, you can mail those giftsto the nonprofit. You can google their
address, you can search for itand make those gifts out to the nonprofits
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directly and mention that it's for greatcommunity gift that goes a long way.
And we have a very achievable goalthis year. So the goal this year
is two million. I don't knowabout achievable, but year we did it
before. You're absolutely right sure wedidn't do that. We did it last
year. We raised two million,five hundred and forty five for those participating
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organizations so I'm hopeful that the communitywill come out and show their support again
this year. I'm sure they will. And last year you were sort of
sweating that that last couple of dollarscame in. I really was within the
last bin or two. So maybeour goal this year is to hit that
goal a couple of hours before sowe can go over the goal. It
would be nice, right if wecould reach it well before eight o'clock deadline
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on April seventeenth, and we cancoast from there. Maybe we make a
new goal for the nonprofits before thetime is up and you have a big
event planned that day, can wecome down to the Great Community Give,
Can we drop a check off inperson? Or how what's that day look
like for us? So for thegreater community, there are events kind of
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spread out the community, whether anonprofit is hosting one. I know a
lot of nonprofits are hosting in personevents for their supporters their donors, and
so I encourage you to take alook through and see who's hosting what and
maybe connecting with them in person.There. As far as the Community Foundation,
we kind of serve as the headquartersor the hub of great Community Give.
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If you will so we are haveour volunteers there and we're ready to
help nonprofits over the phone or emailand help donors with their questions as they
come in. And we'll have sponsorscome and visit us on the day of
and nonprofits and we can take bigcheck prizes, prize pictures, and nonprofits
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are welcome to come and take picturesand hang out and post from their social
media there too. As far aspeople coming to the Community Foundation, you
can join the chaos if you want, but I highly encourage you to connect
with those nonprofits at their places.Very good and the website is great Community
give dot org. You got it. You've got social media accounts, we
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can follow along that day and ohyou know we do. It's an online
campaign. We can't go without thesocial media. We've got Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram. We are a verywe have a great presence on those
platforms. And one of those onehundred and fifty seven local nonprofits is the
Value Program for Aging Services. BethBland, the executive director of VPASS,
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is here along with Joyce Nussbaum,and Joyce is a director of Senior Services
for Harrisonburg Rockingham County. Ladies.Good morning, Good morning, good morning.
So let's start off. I feellike you've probably seen the pass out
and about you've seen one of theirbuses or transport vehicles. That be your
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total knowledge of what vpass is.So, Beth, why don't you explain
to us your organization and what you'redoing here in the community. Well,
thanks, Chris, I would loveto. But before I get into that,
I just really want to say thankyou to the Community Foundation of Harrisonburg
and Rockingham County. We have beenparticipants in all seven years. I remember
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way back when Revlon Hill, theexecutive director of the Community Foundation, pulled
together nonprofits and said, Hey,we've got this crazy thing that we can
do. Would you all want toparticipate in it? And of course everybody
said yes. And if I remembercorrectly, Amanda was just an intern at
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that time and she took that projecton. And wow, look at how
far it's come. So kudos toAmanda and to the Community Foundation. Excellent
work. And it also goes toshow that the generosity in our community is
just so overwhelming. To be ableto raise that amount of money in less
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than twenty four hours is mind blowing. It's just awesome. You really really
does take a community to support allthese organizations. It really does. And
so let me tell you a littlebit about the PASS. We are a
nonprofit organization, of course, butwe are also the local Area Agency on
Aging. And if you don't knowwhat that is, I'll give you a
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little history lesson. Back in nineteensixty five, the Older Americans Act was
established, and that Act was reallyset forth to meet the needs, particularly
the social and nutritional needs of olderadults. So at the federal level,
the Administration on Aging was formed.At the state level, state agencies on
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Aging were formed. In the stateof Virginia, it is the Department of
Aging and Rehabilitative Services otherwise known asSTARS. And then at the local level,
Area Agencies on Aging reform. Inthe state of Virginia there are twenty
five Area Agencies on Aging and sowe are divided by Planning District depas serves
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Planning District six, which is Heresenburg, Rockingham, Stanton, Augusta, Waynesboro,
Bath, Holland, b Univista,Lexington, and Rockbridge. And I
think I should be snapping my fingersas I say that. It feels like
a little rap song. But wefocus on serving the needs of adults sixty
years in older, and our missionis to empower them with the resources and
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opportunities they need to lead engage lives. So not only are we serving adults
sixty years in older, we areserving their families, their caregivers and really
helping them have what they need toremain living independently in their homes and communities.
So what kind of care are youoffering? Well, really, I'm
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not sure I would use the wordcare. I would use the word supports
and resources. But that's a reallylong list. So to start at the
very basic level, information referral andassistance. People can call us up and
they can say I have a questionabout this or I wanted it more information
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on that, and it can beas simple as a very quick phone call.
The next level is if a personfeels like they need assistance, or
their loved one, a family member, a healthcare provider feels like they need
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some additional assistance, they can referare an order adult to vpass And what
typically happens with that is we havecase managers all across our service area that
we'll go into the home and gothrough a complete assessment looking at every aspect
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of that person's life. And fromthat point they will make recommendations referrals to
other support services that help that personbe able to remain living independently in their
homes as long as it's safe forthem to do that. So what kind
of services might that be, Well, it could be services within VPASS,
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it could be services outside of epas, other community services. Probably our best
known service is the mails on willsprogram. That's kind of the core signature
program that if anybody knows anything aboutVPASS, they know we do meals on
wills. So beyond mails on wheels, we could have case managers just helping
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a person again connect with other resources. Whether it's finding someone to come in
to the home and provide assistance,or whether it's applying for extra benefits that
they might need. It could beconnecting them with our Senior transportation program to
get to medical appointments, the grocerystore, the doctor's office, things like
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that. It could be helping themunderstand their Medicare benefits. Medicare is a
very complex, complicated program. Aspeople agent to Medicare when they're turning sixty
five, they kind of think thatthis is going to be a magical thing
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that happens I'm sixty five and nowI have Medicare. Well, it's not
quite that easy. There are alot of components to medical care, and
each year they seem to get alittle more complicated. And so our staff
and volunteers that we have our wecall them our by CAP counselors, and
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they go through annual trainings and certificationsto be able to answer people's questions.
We're not insurance providers. We don'tsell products, we don't get any kickback.
We are simply providing information so thatMedicare beneficiaries can make educated and informed
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decisions. Is there a cost tothe older adults who reach out to you
for any of these services? Thereis no formal charge. However, we
do invite volunteery confidential donations. Wedo receive funding because of being an area
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agency on aging. We receive fundingfrom federal dollars, state dollars, local
governments, grants, fundraisers, civicgroups, faith communities. So we are
really like even though we have afederal and state funding source and local government
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support, we're like every other nonprofit. We are working very hard to raise
the funds that we need to servethe people that we serve and we are
seeing that, you know, asthe baby boomers, the first wave of
the baby boomers are starting to agein and needing services, and so we're
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seeing our numbers for the most part, really starting to increase. But guess
what, the federal and state dollarsdon't increase. And so we're really trying
to close a much a gap that'sgetting bigger every year. And the Great
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Community Give is a great resource forus. Last year, we had a
twenty five thousand dollars gift come inthrough the Great Community Give and the donor
just really liked what they were doingand he really liked we have some match
components in our Great Community Give andso it was it's kind of a funny
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story. The donor was from Lexington, believe it or not, and of
course we were pushing out day ofall kinds of information about the Great Community
Give and he called our Buna Vistaoffice and he said, Hey, is
this legit? And they were likeyeah, and he, you know,
came down with a twenty five thousanddollars check and said, I love what
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you're doing. That's a good day. It was a great day. And
I would imagine even with the differentfunding avenues that you have. Even if
you are covering all your costs,that just means that you're able to do
what you're doing now. You can'texpand and do all the other programs that
are on your wish list if youdon't have additional funding. That's right.
And you know, just like everybodyis filling the crunch at the grocery store
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and the gas station, we arefilling that crunch too. Our vendors are
filling that crunch, and costs arejust going up. That's the reality.
It's costing us more to transport people, it's costing us more to purchase the
food. And we have very strictguidelines for our Mills on Wills program.
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We have to provide one third ofthe daily nutritional requirements that an older adult
needs, so that doesn't come cheap. You know, we're not serving tomato
soup and crackers peanut butter sandwich.We are providing good, healthy meals and
so those things cost. We haveto pay for it. And having days
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like the Great Community Give and otherfundraisers, other community support individuals in the
community. It really makes a difference. So let me talk about some of
our other programs too. We havewhat we call cafes, and these are
this is a program that again theyare offered all across our service area,
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but it's a time for people tocome together for socialization, a little bit
of exercise, maybe an educational programor a craft, and then a shared
meal. And I think we allreally learned that through the pandemic, social
isolation is a real thing and it'sa real problem. So now you know,
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we, like everybody else, throughthe pandemic, we had to close
our doors on a lot of programs. We of course, our meals on
welles stayed, our transportation stayed,but we had to shut down the programs
where people came together to congregate.So when we reopened with our cafes,
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it's been a really good time tojust bring people back together, and it's
taken a little time for people tofeel comfortable we've been open. I was
thinking just the other day we've beenreopened just a little over two years,
and we have decided instead of havingfewer locations, we have more locations,
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going into more communities, meeting peoplewhere they're at. We don't meet quite
as frequently, maybe a couple oftimes a month or once or twice a
week, but people are now justwe're starting to see our numbers increase and
they're really enjoying just being together,spending time together and getting back out being
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with friends, being active again,you know, using their minds and engaging
in ways that they had lost fora very long time. Another component that
we offer is our Aging with Confidenceprograms, and these are kind of one
and done programs where we invite peopleto come in and learn about a topic
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of interest to older adults. Soit'll be an hour an hour and a
half program that people can register toattend and just learn about something related to
aging. We do a variety,we have topics to try to meet a
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variety of interest. So we alsooffer that. But going back a minute
to the pandemic, one of thethings that we saw really rise to the
top in terms of need were theneeds of caregivers. And so I'm going
to invite Joyce to talk about thatbecause she has really led our caregiver programs
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our Dementia Education and has done afantastic job with them. So vpas realized
during the pandemic and continues to realizethat caregivers they're in a situation where isolation
is sort of part of their life, and the pandemic just increased that,
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and so we started reaching out tocaregivers for virtual support groups and that has
blossomed into independent conversations with caregivers whereso nobody can just call and say,
Hey, I have this issue,I'd like to talk about it, or
I'm not sure what the next stepis, and so VPEZ offers both individual
and group support opportunities, both onlineand in person, and we offer a
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lot of other opportunities for caregivers aswell. Maybe you want to get together
into a series where we talk aboutcaring for yourself while you're caring for others,
or you want to just learn fromother people about how they're coping with
their situations. We offer support forcaregivers who are caring for someone who's living
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with dementia as well as people whoare not, and a lot of times
the care is similar. So theway we have communication with someone living with
dementia is also helpful for someone whohas hearing loss or has issues with chronic
pains. So there's a lot ofsimilarities. And what we find with caregivers
is they're really just looking for validationthat they're doing their best job. That
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they can that other people are inthis together with them, they're not alone,
and that there is support out therewhen they have a question. Is
it true that caregivers in many caseswill pre decease the person they're caring for
because of the stress and they're focusingeverything on their loved one and not focusing
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on their own self care. Unfortunately, that's really true. So often we
hear from caregivers, I don't havetime to go to the doctor myself because
I'm too busy getting my loved onethere. And then if I do need
to go myself, Who's going totake care of my loved one while I
go? And so we really dofocus a lot on helping people understand that
if they don't, if they don'tcare for themselves, what is their contingency
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plan for the person that they're caringfor now? And that's a really hard
thing to do, to step backand say, what am I not going
to do for my loved one whileI take care of myself? Yeah,
And so that's where we can stepin and then maybe provide some ideas and
some options for respite care or otherkinds of opportunities where people can find a
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way to care for their loved oneusing other supports. I do a lot
of work each year with the Alzheimer'sWalk, and that's one of the topics
that they bring up. And myaunt, her husband just died from Alzheimer's
a year a year ago March andI got married about a year and a
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half ago, and I invited herto the wedding and my cousins, all
the people who were her support staff, you know, support group when she
needed to step away from caring forher husband. And I thought it was
going to be the end of myaunt as she tried to figure out who
was going to come in care formy uncle for the four hours that they
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were up here from Richmond, becausethe people she trusted and loved to trust
you to love him, we're goingto be here with her. And it
was like was panic mode. AndI wish that she she had an opportunity
to reach out for help, ButI wish you would have taken advantage of
it, because it would have beena lot, a lot less burden on
her shoulders. Is you know,she felt guilty for stepping away for something
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she'd looked forward to for so long, was to come to my wedding right.
You know, it's really sad howwhen you're you are the sole caregiver
at home, it almost becomes likeyou're you know, you're hiding, You're
always at home, You're not gettingtogether with friends, You're not you know,
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you might get to the grocery store. If you can get there and
back quick enough that you feel likeit's going to be safe, it's yeah,
right, And a lot of timeswhat happens is that it's it sort
of evolves and you don't realize untilyou're totally immersed in it that you've given
your entire life to caregiving and you'resort of losing yourself. People say that
they feel like they're drowning and caregivingand it's something they want to do.
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They love this person, they wantto give care. And so stepping back
and saying what are the things involvedin care that I must do? No
one else can do this but me, And then what are the things that
someone else could help me with?And what one step could I take to
get help for that thing? Andstart there, because sometimes it's just overwhelming
to think of how would we getcare? So VPAS is a great place
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to start with that week and helppeople have that conversation. And then we
also offer dementia education to go alongwith that. So sometimes people after they
go through one of our dementia edprograms will say to me two weeks later,
well, my loved one is doingso much better, and they don't
recognize, maybe yet, that it'sbecause they're responding differently. They've learned tools
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to cope. They're doing some sleep, they're getting some sleep, they're not
arguing, they're not you know,they're redirecting rather than trying to re educate
whatever it is. They've learned theseskills, and they don't even maybe aren't
aware that those things were causing moreconflict with the person they're caring for than
they realize. And so just justa little bit of knowledge can go a
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long way. And then we alsooffer a caregiver conference and that's coming up
this year in September September seventeenth,and that is an all day event for
caregivers to come and hang out withother people and enjoy some education that way.
So we have a lot of programs, more programs than I've you know,
would have time maybe to mention,but give us a call. Check
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out our website. We'd love tohave caregivers interact with us. You mentioned
meals on wheels. I've known thatyou know name since I was a kid.
You see the commercials on TV.In many cases, once the meal
is being delivered. Is it truethat that's the only contact that that older
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adult may have with the outside worldbecause they've just decided to stay home or
they don't feel they can afford toleave their home. That is true,
it's offen true that that might bethe only personal contact they have that day.
And in fact, they might geta phone call from someone, or
they might interact with people in otherways, but to actually see someone face
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to face and have a minute tochat, that is often their only opportunity.
And right now, we deliver inHarristenberg and Rockenham. We deliver meals
on Monday and Wednesday, and we'revery excited that the Valley Village Group is
helping us find enough volunteers so thatwe can start Thursday delivery, and the
other locations at VPS also offer deliveryon multiple days each week. It's different
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in each location, but that connection, you know, sometimes we'll find that
someone I'll see a note that saysyou know this person didn't look well,
or this person said they had fallen, or this person had fallen and we
needed to call for help, andso we contact their emergency contact person.
We ask them, you know,what is that they need and want from
us, But we can be thatnext step in getting them some addition,
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no support or care in that situation. Or maybe it's just the smile that
brightens their day and they know somebodycares about them. I think, you
know, back when I was eatingat fast food restaurants a lot more than
I do now, the same personwould be at the window, you know,
as you hit the drive and Ilook forward to it. Look,
how's your day going. What haveyou been up to? Oh, you
know, doing this, doing that? Yeah, And I think those kind
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of even though they're you know,I may not even know their name,
they become you know, quasi friendshipsand become really important to you. You
look forward to that moment where youget to say hi to them, and
you know, I imagine that,you know, that's a similar situation when
the meals being delivered, it is. And recently I had an opportunity to
be a substitute for a route andwhen I went to the door, the
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first, the person's first response waswhere is where is my regular person?
You are? They okay? Andso the care goes both ways, and
it's it's a neat it's a neatthing to see and I'm guessing pretty rewarding
for your volunt too. I believeit is because they keep you know,
they keep coming back and they keepthey keep offering their time. So it's
much more than a meal. Itis a meal, it's a healthy meal,
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but it's interaction and that's beautiful,a lot more nourishing of the mind,
body, and soul than just thenutrients and the food exactly. That's
what's your goal, you know,moving forward for vpas, where do you
see yourself in the next five andten years? Well, that's an excellent
question. We are actually in thebeginning stages of a new strategic plan that
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will run twenty twenty five through twentytwenty eight, and so I think that
what we will really be looking atis what are the most important services we
offer and how are we going tokeep them going? And you know,
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we talk about volunteers for meals.Prior to the pandemic, we were delivering
meals five days a week. Wehad a volunteer force that allowed us to
be able to do that. Sincethe pandemic, the volunteers are not coming
back. And this is not justto be past problem. You know,
other area agencies on aging or seeingit, other nonprofits are seeing it.
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And so you know, we aretrying to figure out, you know,
how to continue to meet the needs, how to continue to meet the growing
needs, and how to do thatwith you know, when we're challenged with
our financial resources, and so wewe have a lot of thinking and a
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lot of planning to do for thatand how can we do things better and
more efficiently, more cost effective andyou know every non profit, you know,
they save every penny they can andwe're not any different from that.
But the other thing that we've reallyrealized is, you know, our workforce,
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our team is a real critical componentto what we are able to offer
older adults in the community. Andso I think that is an area that
we will be focusing on. Howwe can invest even more in our employees
and how we can identify some ofthe hidden talents and capitalize on some of
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the hidden talents that our employees have. So it's going to be an exciting
next few months as we put togetherthis new plan and then executing that as
we go out. And one thingI really need to mention is that this
year is v passes fiftieth anniversary,so it's a big year for us.
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We we'll be having our anniversary celebrationon May eighteenth in Waynesboro. Waynesboro is
our main office and so we arereally excited about our songs and Sundays we'll
have some music and old fashioned icecream social So we're really excited about that
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as well. But I think oneof the things, a couple of things
we would be remiss if we didn'ttalk about, is you mentioned you're in
situation. And one of the challengesthat we have really bumped up against is
the healthcare providers, the nursing assistants, the AIDS, they're just not there.
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It's very, very difficult to findreliable support coming into the home.
And that is a service that wedid offer, we would love to offer,
but we bumped up against. Youknow, the agencies that we contracted
with. The aids didn't show upor they were sending different aids every you
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know, every visit, and youknow as an older adult that maybe they're
getting assistance with bathing or dressing.To have somebody different come every time is
not easy, and so we wantto be respectful of that. And so
that is an area that we've seena lot of challenges. And you know,
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we think about the people who arecaring for our two most vulnerable groups,
our children and our older adults.Our seniors are our lowest paid employees,
and there's a problem there. Iworked in a nursing home when I
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was in my twenties, and Iwill tell you minimum wage for the amount
of care that they're asking from bothan emotional and physical standpoint, is not
enough for what you take home fromthat. And I don't mean the particular
pay, but the you know you'recarrying all those emotions with you as you
leave too. I said that wasone of the best jobs I ever had,
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better than radio, which I love. It was just you couldn't pay
your bills doing that, right,Really, it's regrettable. Well, you
know, it's funny you say thatbecause my first job was also as a
nursing assistant and one of the localretirement communities. And to this day I
can still remember some of our patients. The one lady went up put her
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to bed, every night she'd lookup and she'd say, I love you
a bushel and a peck and ahug around the neck. So you know,
it is, and that's the reasonyou went back the next day.
Yeah, it really, it reallyis. And just you know, there's
a lot that older adults can offerthe younger generations, and I think that
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sometimes we don't always recognize that asmuch as we should, and we don't
always have the respect that we should, just generally speaking. I love that
my dad said to me when Isaid, what's it like getting older?
And he said, it's looking inthe mirror and not recognizing the old man
who's looking back at you when youstill feel like you're sixteen in your mind.
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And you know, when I workedat the nursing home, that was
the thing that I thought was sojust you know, it weighed heavy on
me because people weren't being treated withthe same respect they would have been treated
with if they would have been thirtyinstead of ninety. And they had great
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stories and they you know, hugehearts, and they appreciated their family appreciated
you so much. But you know, the body breaks down and you can't
do everything yourself anymore, and you'redepending on people that you hope will respect
and appreciate you as much as yourespect and appreciate yourself. Those are hard
hard people to find right well,and that's one of the reasons that we
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have gotten so focused on dementia educationbecause really, there and Joys can speak
to this much better than I can. But if if you are not educated
on understanding dementia and understanding better waysto communicate with people living with dementia,
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or understanding better what the various behaviorsmean, a lot of times people will
say, Oh, they're just beinghonrey, or they're just being spiteful,
or are they know better, orthey try, you know, to reorientate
them. Oh no, your husbandnot ten years ago, and you know,
(35:00):
if they're doing the best they canif they don't know. But that's
part of the reason that we areworking very hard to create a dementia friendly
valley. We are working towards dementiafriendly designations. We've received that in Harrisonburg
and Rockingham and in Lexington. Rightnow our Stanton Augusta Wayensboro office is working
(35:22):
on that, and then we willmove into Rockbridge County and bathen Holland and
that is a real designation. Thereare certain things that we have to accomplish
to receive that designation, but ourhope is to really be able to help
(35:42):
people everyday. People the clerk behindthe counter at the Delhi when they have
someone coming for their service and theyhave an awkward interact, well, maybe
with a little education, they canrecognize, oh, this person may be
(36:04):
struggling. One time, I wasat the grocery store and this elderly gentleman
went up to the deli and hewent like four pieces of chicken tenders or
something. Well, the person workingthe deli said, but we only sell
them by you know, by ounces. We don't sell them by pieces,
(36:29):
and they just I watched him goback and forth, and the man was
escalating because he didn't understand what theperson working the deli was trying to say.
She was getting very frustrated because hecouldn't follow what she was trying to
say. And you know, whycouldn't he just place his order the way
(36:49):
that everybody else did. And itended up being a very frustrating situation for
both of them. You could seeit in their faces and hear it in
their voices. And now you justthink, well, if that person took
one of our Dementia Friends at Workclasses, one hour class, if that
was offered, that could have beena very very different interaction. And so
(37:14):
Joyce has again had a leadership rolein leading that initiative. Can you talk
a little bit about our virtual DementiaTours to sure So. One of the
things that's really important is when weunderstand how somebody might be perceiving life in
their situation, we can better respond. The Virtual Dimensia Tour is a simulation.
(37:35):
It's not virtual like we think ofit now, but it's a simulation
where people come and they put onspecific garb that sort of mutes their senses
a little bit, similar to whatit would be like to live with dementia,
and then they're given some tasks todo and they find out what the
challenges are and remembering what you've beentold in actually accomplishing the tasks. And
(37:59):
then there's a debrief afterwards where wetalk about what you experienced, how you
felt about it, and how thismight impact how you care for people or
how you interact with people in thefuture. And so we offer those We
have one coming up. I believeit's June eighth, in Harrisonburg. But
that information is online and people cansign up for that and there's no charge,
(38:21):
and it is definitely a life changingexperience. So whether it's that or
the one hour Dementia Friendly or DementiaFriendly at Work, I really encourage our
community to find a way to geteducated and then find a way to help
your friends and family and neighbors whomaybe can't find someone to come in and
help in the home, but maybeyou can be that person who volunteers and
(38:42):
with a little bit of knowledge,you could do it well. These courses
are on your website. What's theaddress if we'd like to go and and
get more information. So the websiteis at vpass dot info. And if
you just look at caregiver or DementiaEducation, you'll find those, or you
can look at the calendar and seewhat's coming up. Excellent or just almost
out of time, Beth, Iwant to ask how much money you'd like
(39:04):
to raise during the Great Community Giveand how are you going to spend it?
So we would love to raise atleast twenty five thousand dollars. Of
course we would love to raise more, but we'll start there and all of
the money raised will be used forour meals on Wills program. When a
(39:30):
person comes to the pass, whetherit's for meals or transportation, caregiver support,
medicare, counseling, any of thewide menu services that we offer,
they are really enveloped in a supportivenetwork that helps them and supports them as
(39:52):
their needs change over time. Wetruly do help people navigate aging and we
want to be here for them whatevertheir needs are. So we do encourage
people to give us a call.All of our offices across our service area.
The contact information phone numbers are onour website, or they can also
(40:19):
just shoot us an email from ourwebsite. We keep our website very up
to date. We also have aFacebook page, we have a YouTube channel,
and we're on Instagram. So wewant to be here to really support
older adults. We do consider ourselvesa local experts in aging because our staff
(40:45):
have worked for so many years withus in the field of aging and are
very, very knowledgeable, and we'rereally here to help. Well, I've
really enjoyed this conversation because you know, I've heard of the past. Yes,
I sort of understood what you did. This was a great conversation and
I really appreciate all the work you'redoing for the older adults and their families
(41:08):
here in the Shenandoah Valley and yourregion, which had a lot of counties
that you were doing as a rapsong, which I don't for all of
them, but it's amazing work thatyou're doing. And I hope that you
not only hit your goal, butmaybe double or triple your goal so you
can do even more work with that. Crazy, We'll take that. Thank
you. Yeah. The Great CommunityGive is coming up on Wednesday, April
(41:30):
seventeenth. You can go to GreatCommunity Give dot org you point click and
give your minimum contribution seven dollars becauseit's a seventh anniversary this year, but
of course multiples of seven are acceptedto seventy seven hundred and seven thousand.
Hey go crazy, you know,whatever you can afford to do to help
(41:50):
nonprofits here in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. That's Great Community Give dot org Wednesday,
April seventeenth. Early giving is alsounderway. If you want to support
the Valley Program for Aging Services,you can write them a check and send
it to them drop it off atthe Waynesboro office, I would assume,
or you can whether the Harrisonburg officewould be fine too, excellent all right,
(42:10):
So if you want to give there, they'll make sure they make it
easy. We want to thank BethBland, the executive director of Valley Program
for Aging Services, also Joyce Nussbaum, who is the director of Senior Services
for Harrisonburg and Rockingham County, andgood luck with a great community. Give,
thank you, thank you very much. This has been Shenandoah Valley Business
Break. If you have an ideafor a future show, reach us at
(42:34):
the contact tab at NewsRadio WKCY dotcom. Find all past episodes by searching
Business Break on the iHeartRadio app.
Shanando A Valley. Business Break isa podcast about local business and community happenings
and and around the Shenandoah Valley ofVirginia. And I'm Chris Carmichael and we
are joined today by Amanda bomb famAmanda is the director of Marketing and Initiatives
for the Community Foundation of Harrisonburg andRockingham County. You are in charge of
the Great Community Give, which isa week and a half away now to
(00:25):
no less than two weeks, yes, coming up on Wednesday, April seventeenth,
Yes, exactly. Yeah, wehave a little under two weeks to
go. And I'm really excited becausenow we're in the early giving stage of
the Great Community Give campaign and I'mexcited to share with you, Chris,
that I'm starting yesterday right nonprofits we'reaccepting donations online or cash and checks received
(00:50):
directly to their offices. And asof this morning, I did a double
check, they've raised twenty thousand sofar, really in the first twenty four
hours. Yes, and fifty sevenlocal nonprofits are participating in this year's Great
Community Give. This is the seventhGreat Community Give, and so I love
the repetition of sevens everywhere in thiscampaign. So we've got one hundred and
(01:12):
fifty seven and we've got a lotof fun with the number seven, whether
it's the prizes or the hours thatare on the day of. So stay
tuned. So what's the process ifI'd like to give? So that's a
great question. If you would liketo give online, you can go to
Great Community give dot org and youcan search among the one hundred and fifty
(01:34):
seven nonprofits and find one that speaksto you, find causes that mean something
to you and your passion and values, and connect with them by giving at
least seven dollars or more, orif you prefer to give cash and checks
directly, you can mail those giftsto the nonprofit. You can google their
address, you can search for itand make those gifts out to the nonprofits
(02:00):
directly and mention that it's for greatcommunity gift that goes a long way.
And we have a very achievable goalthis year. So the goal this year
is two million. I don't knowabout achievable, but year we did it
before. You're absolutely right sure wedidn't do that. We did it last
year. We raised two million,five hundred and forty five for those participating
(02:20):
organizations so I'm hopeful that the communitywill come out and show their support again
this year. I'm sure they will. And last year you were sort of
sweating that that last couple of dollarscame in. I really was within the
last bin or two. So maybeour goal this year is to hit that
goal a couple of hours before sowe can go over the goal. It
would be nice, right if wecould reach it well before eight o'clock deadline
(02:44):
on April seventeenth, and we cancoast from there. Maybe we make a
new goal for the nonprofits before thetime is up and you have a big
event planned that day, can wecome down to the Great Community Give,
Can we drop a check off inperson? Or how what's that day look
like for us? So for thegreater community, there are events kind of
(03:06):
spread out the community, whether anonprofit is hosting one. I know a
lot of nonprofits are hosting in personevents for their supporters their donors, and
so I encourage you to take alook through and see who's hosting what and
maybe connecting with them in person.There. As far as the Community Foundation,
we kind of serve as the headquartersor the hub of great Community Give.
(03:30):
If you will so we are haveour volunteers there and we're ready to
help nonprofits over the phone or emailand help donors with their questions as they
come in. And we'll have sponsorscome and visit us on the day of
and nonprofits and we can take bigcheck prizes, prize pictures, and nonprofits
(03:52):
are welcome to come and take picturesand hang out and post from their social
media there too. As far aspeople coming to the Community Foundation, you
can join the chaos if you want, but I highly encourage you to connect
with those nonprofits at their places.Very good and the website is great Community
give dot org. You got it. You've got social media accounts, we
(04:14):
can follow along that day and ohyou know we do. It's an online
campaign. We can't go without thesocial media. We've got Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram. We are a verywe have a great presence on those
platforms. And one of those onehundred and fifty seven local nonprofits is the
Value Program for Aging Services. BethBland, the executive director of VPASS,
(04:39):
is here along with Joyce Nussbaum,and Joyce is a director of Senior Services
for Harrisonburg Rockingham County. Ladies.Good morning, Good morning, good morning.
So let's start off. I feellike you've probably seen the pass out
and about you've seen one of theirbuses or transport vehicles. That be your
(05:00):
total knowledge of what vpass is.So, Beth, why don't you explain
to us your organization and what you'redoing here in the community. Well,
thanks, Chris, I would loveto. But before I get into that,
I just really want to say thankyou to the Community Foundation of Harrisonburg
and Rockingham County. We have beenparticipants in all seven years. I remember
(05:24):
way back when Revlon Hill, theexecutive director of the Community Foundation, pulled
together nonprofits and said, Hey,we've got this crazy thing that we can
do. Would you all want toparticipate in it? And of course everybody
said yes. And if I remembercorrectly, Amanda was just an intern at
(05:46):
that time and she took that projecton. And wow, look at how
far it's come. So kudos toAmanda and to the Community Foundation. Excellent
work. And it also goes toshow that the generosity in our community is
just so overwhelming. To be ableto raise that amount of money in less
(06:11):
than twenty four hours is mind blowing. It's just awesome. You really really
does take a community to support allthese organizations. It really does. And
so let me tell you a littlebit about the PASS. We are a
nonprofit organization, of course, butwe are also the local Area Agency on
Aging. And if you don't knowwhat that is, I'll give you a
(06:34):
little history lesson. Back in nineteensixty five, the Older Americans Act was
established, and that Act was reallyset forth to meet the needs, particularly
the social and nutritional needs of olderadults. So at the federal level,
the Administration on Aging was formed.At the state level, state agencies on
(06:58):
Aging were formed. In the stateof Virginia, it is the Department of
Aging and Rehabilitative Services otherwise known asSTARS. And then at the local level,
Area Agencies on Aging reform. Inthe state of Virginia there are twenty
five Area Agencies on Aging and sowe are divided by Planning District depas serves
(07:20):
Planning District six, which is Heresenburg, Rockingham, Stanton, Augusta, Waynesboro,
Bath, Holland, b Univista,Lexington, and Rockbridge. And I
think I should be snapping my fingersas I say that. It feels like
a little rap song. But wefocus on serving the needs of adults sixty
years in older, and our missionis to empower them with the resources and
(07:44):
opportunities they need to lead engage lives. So not only are we serving adults
sixty years in older, we areserving their families, their caregivers and really
helping them have what they need toremain living independently in their homes and communities.
So what kind of care are youoffering? Well, really, I'm
(08:09):
not sure I would use the wordcare. I would use the word supports
and resources. But that's a reallylong list. So to start at the
very basic level, information referral andassistance. People can call us up and
they can say I have a questionabout this or I wanted it more information
(08:35):
on that, and it can beas simple as a very quick phone call.
The next level is if a personfeels like they need assistance, or
their loved one, a family member, a healthcare provider feels like they need
(08:56):
some additional assistance, they can referare an order adult to vpass And what
typically happens with that is we havecase managers all across our service area that
we'll go into the home and gothrough a complete assessment looking at every aspect
(09:18):
of that person's life. And fromthat point they will make recommendations referrals to
other support services that help that personbe able to remain living independently in their
homes as long as it's safe forthem to do that. So what kind
of services might that be, Well, it could be services within VPASS,
(09:41):
it could be services outside of epas, other community services. Probably our best
known service is the mails on willsprogram. That's kind of the core signature
program that if anybody knows anything aboutVPASS, they know we do meals on
wills. So beyond mails on wheels, we could have case managers just helping
(10:07):
a person again connect with other resources. Whether it's finding someone to come in
to the home and provide assistance,or whether it's applying for extra benefits that
they might need. It could beconnecting them with our Senior transportation program to
get to medical appointments, the grocerystore, the doctor's office, things like
(10:31):
that. It could be helping themunderstand their Medicare benefits. Medicare is a
very complex, complicated program. Aspeople agent to Medicare when they're turning sixty
five, they kind of think thatthis is going to be a magical thing
(10:52):
that happens I'm sixty five and nowI have Medicare. Well, it's not
quite that easy. There are alot of components to medical care, and
each year they seem to get alittle more complicated. And so our staff
and volunteers that we have our wecall them our by CAP counselors, and
(11:13):
they go through annual trainings and certificationsto be able to answer people's questions.
We're not insurance providers. We don'tsell products, we don't get any kickback.
We are simply providing information so thatMedicare beneficiaries can make educated and informed
(11:35):
decisions. Is there a cost tothe older adults who reach out to you
for any of these services? Thereis no formal charge. However, we
do invite volunteery confidential donations. Wedo receive funding because of being an area
(11:58):
agency on aging. We receive fundingfrom federal dollars, state dollars, local
governments, grants, fundraisers, civicgroups, faith communities. So we are
really like even though we have afederal and state funding source and local government
(12:22):
support, we're like every other nonprofit. We are working very hard to raise
the funds that we need to servethe people that we serve and we are
seeing that, you know, asthe baby boomers, the first wave of
the baby boomers are starting to agein and needing services, and so we're
(12:46):
seeing our numbers for the most part, really starting to increase. But guess
what, the federal and state dollarsdon't increase. And so we're really trying
to close a much a gap that'sgetting bigger every year. And the Great
(13:09):
Community Give is a great resource forus. Last year, we had a
twenty five thousand dollars gift come inthrough the Great Community Give and the donor
just really liked what they were doingand he really liked we have some match
components in our Great Community Give andso it was it's kind of a funny
(13:35):
story. The donor was from Lexington, believe it or not, and of
course we were pushing out day ofall kinds of information about the Great Community
Give and he called our Buna Vistaoffice and he said, Hey, is
this legit? And they were likeyeah, and he, you know,
came down with a twenty five thousanddollars check and said, I love what
(13:56):
you're doing. That's a good day. It was a great day. And
I would imagine even with the differentfunding avenues that you have. Even if
you are covering all your costs,that just means that you're able to do
what you're doing now. You can'texpand and do all the other programs that
are on your wish list if youdon't have additional funding. That's right.
And you know, just like everybodyis filling the crunch at the grocery store
(14:20):
and the gas station, we arefilling that crunch too. Our vendors are
filling that crunch, and costs arejust going up. That's the reality.
It's costing us more to transport people, it's costing us more to purchase the
food. And we have very strictguidelines for our Mills on Wills program.
(14:45):
We have to provide one third ofthe daily nutritional requirements that an older adult
needs, so that doesn't come cheap. You know, we're not serving tomato
soup and crackers peanut butter sandwich.We are providing good, healthy meals and
so those things cost. We haveto pay for it. And having days
(15:13):
like the Great Community Give and otherfundraisers, other community support individuals in the
community. It really makes a difference. So let me talk about some of
our other programs too. We havewhat we call cafes, and these are
this is a program that again theyare offered all across our service area,
(15:37):
but it's a time for people tocome together for socialization, a little bit
of exercise, maybe an educational programor a craft, and then a shared
meal. And I think we allreally learned that through the pandemic, social
isolation is a real thing and it'sa real problem. So now you know,
(16:02):
we, like everybody else, throughthe pandemic, we had to close
our doors on a lot of programs. We of course, our meals on
welles stayed, our transportation stayed,but we had to shut down the programs
where people came together to congregate.So when we reopened with our cafes,
(16:22):
it's been a really good time tojust bring people back together, and it's
taken a little time for people tofeel comfortable we've been open. I was
thinking just the other day we've beenreopened just a little over two years,
and we have decided instead of havingfewer locations, we have more locations,
(16:47):
going into more communities, meeting peoplewhere they're at. We don't meet quite
as frequently, maybe a couple oftimes a month or once or twice a
week, but people are now justwe're starting to see our numbers increase and
they're really enjoying just being together,spending time together and getting back out being
(17:10):
with friends, being active again,you know, using their minds and engaging
in ways that they had lost fora very long time. Another component that
we offer is our Aging with Confidenceprograms, and these are kind of one
and done programs where we invite peopleto come in and learn about a topic
(17:38):
of interest to older adults. Soit'll be an hour an hour and a
half program that people can register toattend and just learn about something related to
aging. We do a variety,we have topics to try to meet a
(18:02):
variety of interest. So we alsooffer that. But going back a minute
to the pandemic, one of thethings that we saw really rise to the
top in terms of need were theneeds of caregivers. And so I'm going
to invite Joyce to talk about thatbecause she has really led our caregiver programs
(18:29):
our Dementia Education and has done afantastic job with them. So vpas realized
during the pandemic and continues to realizethat caregivers they're in a situation where isolation
is sort of part of their life, and the pandemic just increased that,
(18:49):
and so we started reaching out tocaregivers for virtual support groups and that has
blossomed into independent conversations with caregivers whereso nobody can just call and say,
Hey, I have this issue,I'd like to talk about it, or
I'm not sure what the next stepis, and so VPEZ offers both individual
and group support opportunities, both onlineand in person, and we offer a
(19:15):
lot of other opportunities for caregivers aswell. Maybe you want to get together
into a series where we talk aboutcaring for yourself while you're caring for others,
or you want to just learn fromother people about how they're coping with
their situations. We offer support forcaregivers who are caring for someone who's living
(19:37):
with dementia as well as people whoare not, and a lot of times
the care is similar. So theway we have communication with someone living with
dementia is also helpful for someone whohas hearing loss or has issues with chronic
pains. So there's a lot ofsimilarities. And what we find with caregivers
is they're really just looking for validationthat they're doing their best job. That
(20:00):
they can that other people are inthis together with them, they're not alone,
and that there is support out therewhen they have a question. Is
it true that caregivers in many caseswill pre decease the person they're caring for
because of the stress and they're focusingeverything on their loved one and not focusing
(20:23):
on their own self care. Unfortunately, that's really true. So often we
hear from caregivers, I don't havetime to go to the doctor myself because
I'm too busy getting my loved onethere. And then if I do need
to go myself, Who's going totake care of my loved one while I
go? And so we really dofocus a lot on helping people understand that
if they don't, if they don'tcare for themselves, what is their contingency
(20:47):
plan for the person that they're caringfor now? And that's a really hard
thing to do, to step backand say, what am I not going
to do for my loved one whileI take care of myself? Yeah,
And so that's where we can stepin and then maybe provide some ideas and
some options for respite care or otherkinds of opportunities where people can find a
(21:08):
way to care for their loved oneusing other supports. I do a lot
of work each year with the Alzheimer'sWalk, and that's one of the topics
that they bring up. And myaunt, her husband just died from Alzheimer's
a year a year ago March andI got married about a year and a
(21:30):
half ago, and I invited herto the wedding and my cousins, all
the people who were her support staff, you know, support group when she
needed to step away from caring forher husband. And I thought it was
going to be the end of myaunt as she tried to figure out who
was going to come in care formy uncle for the four hours that they
(21:52):
were up here from Richmond, becausethe people she trusted and loved to trust
you to love him, we're goingto be here with her. And it
was like was panic mode. AndI wish that she she had an opportunity
to reach out for help, ButI wish you would have taken advantage of
it, because it would have beena lot, a lot less burden on
her shoulders. Is you know,she felt guilty for stepping away for something
(22:15):
she'd looked forward to for so long, was to come to my wedding right.
You know, it's really sad howwhen you're you are the sole caregiver
at home, it almost becomes likeyou're you know, you're hiding, You're
always at home, You're not gettingtogether with friends, You're not you know,
(22:36):
you might get to the grocery store. If you can get there and
back quick enough that you feel likeit's going to be safe, it's yeah,
right, And a lot of timeswhat happens is that it's it sort
of evolves and you don't realize untilyou're totally immersed in it that you've given
your entire life to caregiving and you'resort of losing yourself. People say that
they feel like they're drowning and caregivingand it's something they want to do.
(22:57):
They love this person, they wantto give care. And so stepping back
and saying what are the things involvedin care that I must do? No
one else can do this but me, And then what are the things that
someone else could help me with?And what one step could I take to
get help for that thing? Andstart there, because sometimes it's just overwhelming
to think of how would we getcare? So VPAS is a great place
(23:18):
to start with that week and helppeople have that conversation. And then we
also offer dementia education to go alongwith that. So sometimes people after they
go through one of our dementia edprograms will say to me two weeks later,
well, my loved one is doingso much better, and they don't
recognize, maybe yet, that it'sbecause they're responding differently. They've learned tools
(23:40):
to cope. They're doing some sleep, they're getting some sleep, they're not
arguing, they're not you know,they're redirecting rather than trying to re educate
whatever it is. They've learned theseskills, and they don't even maybe aren't
aware that those things were causing moreconflict with the person they're caring for than
they realize. And so just justa little bit of knowledge can go a
(24:03):
long way. And then we alsooffer a caregiver conference and that's coming up
this year in September September seventeenth,and that is an all day event for
caregivers to come and hang out withother people and enjoy some education that way.
So we have a lot of programs, more programs than I've you know,
would have time maybe to mention,but give us a call. Check
(24:23):
out our website. We'd love tohave caregivers interact with us. You mentioned
meals on wheels. I've known thatyou know name since I was a kid.
You see the commercials on TV.In many cases, once the meal
is being delivered. Is it truethat that's the only contact that that older
(24:48):
adult may have with the outside worldbecause they've just decided to stay home or
they don't feel they can afford toleave their home. That is true,
it's offen true that that might bethe only personal contact they have that day.
And in fact, they might geta phone call from someone, or
they might interact with people in otherways, but to actually see someone face
(25:10):
to face and have a minute tochat, that is often their only opportunity.
And right now, we deliver inHarristenberg and Rockenham. We deliver meals
on Monday and Wednesday, and we'revery excited that the Valley Village Group is
helping us find enough volunteers so thatwe can start Thursday delivery, and the
other locations at VPS also offer deliveryon multiple days each week. It's different
(25:37):
in each location, but that connection, you know, sometimes we'll find that
someone I'll see a note that saysyou know this person didn't look well,
or this person said they had fallen, or this person had fallen and we
needed to call for help, andso we contact their emergency contact person.
We ask them, you know,what is that they need and want from
us, But we can be thatnext step in getting them some addition,
(26:00):
no support or care in that situation. Or maybe it's just the smile that
brightens their day and they know somebodycares about them. I think, you
know, back when I was eatingat fast food restaurants a lot more than
I do now, the same personwould be at the window, you know,
as you hit the drive and Ilook forward to it. Look,
how's your day going. What haveyou been up to? Oh, you
know, doing this, doing that? Yeah, And I think those kind
(26:22):
of even though they're you know,I may not even know their name,
they become you know, quasi friendshipsand become really important to you. You
look forward to that moment where youget to say hi to them, and
you know, I imagine that,you know, that's a similar situation when
the meals being delivered, it is. And recently I had an opportunity to
be a substitute for a route andwhen I went to the door, the
(26:47):
first, the person's first response waswhere is where is my regular person?
You are? They okay? Andso the care goes both ways, and
it's it's a neat it's a neatthing to see and I'm guessing pretty rewarding
for your volunt too. I believeit is because they keep you know,
they keep coming back and they keepthey keep offering their time. So it's
much more than a meal. Itis a meal, it's a healthy meal,
(27:10):
but it's interaction and that's beautiful,a lot more nourishing of the mind,
body, and soul than just thenutrients and the food exactly. That's
what's your goal, you know,moving forward for vpas, where do you
see yourself in the next five andten years? Well, that's an excellent
question. We are actually in thebeginning stages of a new strategic plan that
(27:36):
will run twenty twenty five through twentytwenty eight, and so I think that
what we will really be looking atis what are the most important services we
offer and how are we going tokeep them going? And you know,
(28:02):
we talk about volunteers for meals.Prior to the pandemic, we were delivering
meals five days a week. Wehad a volunteer force that allowed us to
be able to do that. Sincethe pandemic, the volunteers are not coming
back. And this is not justto be past problem. You know,
other area agencies on aging or seeingit, other nonprofits are seeing it.
(28:26):
And so you know, we aretrying to figure out, you know,
how to continue to meet the needs, how to continue to meet the growing
needs, and how to do thatwith you know, when we're challenged with
our financial resources, and so wewe have a lot of thinking and a
(28:48):
lot of planning to do for thatand how can we do things better and
more efficiently, more cost effective andyou know every non profit, you know,
they save every penny they can andwe're not any different from that.
But the other thing that we've reallyrealized is, you know, our workforce,
(29:10):
our team is a real critical componentto what we are able to offer
older adults in the community. Andso I think that is an area that
we will be focusing on. Howwe can invest even more in our employees
and how we can identify some ofthe hidden talents and capitalize on some of
(29:36):
the hidden talents that our employees have. So it's going to be an exciting
next few months as we put togetherthis new plan and then executing that as
we go out. And one thingI really need to mention is that this
year is v passes fiftieth anniversary,so it's a big year for us.
(29:59):
We we'll be having our anniversary celebrationon May eighteenth in Waynesboro. Waynesboro is
our main office and so we arereally excited about our songs and Sundays we'll
have some music and old fashioned icecream social So we're really excited about that
(30:23):
as well. But I think oneof the things, a couple of things
we would be remiss if we didn'ttalk about, is you mentioned you're in
situation. And one of the challengesthat we have really bumped up against is
the healthcare providers, the nursing assistants, the AIDS, they're just not there.
(30:48):
It's very, very difficult to findreliable support coming into the home.
And that is a service that wedid offer, we would love to offer,
but we bumped up against. Youknow, the agencies that we contracted
with. The aids didn't show upor they were sending different aids every you
(31:14):
know, every visit, and youknow as an older adult that maybe they're
getting assistance with bathing or dressing.To have somebody different come every time is
not easy, and so we wantto be respectful of that. And so
that is an area that we've seena lot of challenges. And you know,
(31:36):
we think about the people who arecaring for our two most vulnerable groups,
our children and our older adults.Our seniors are our lowest paid employees,
and there's a problem there. Iworked in a nursing home when I
(31:57):
was in my twenties, and Iwill tell you minimum wage for the amount
of care that they're asking from bothan emotional and physical standpoint, is not
enough for what you take home fromthat. And I don't mean the particular
pay, but the you know you'recarrying all those emotions with you as you
leave too. I said that wasone of the best jobs I ever had,
(32:19):
better than radio, which I love. It was just you couldn't pay
your bills doing that, right,Really, it's regrettable. Well, you
know, it's funny you say thatbecause my first job was also as a
nursing assistant and one of the localretirement communities. And to this day I
can still remember some of our patients. The one lady went up put her
(32:39):
to bed, every night she'd lookup and she'd say, I love you
a bushel and a peck and ahug around the neck. So you know,
it is, and that's the reasonyou went back the next day.
Yeah, it really, it reallyis. And just you know, there's
a lot that older adults can offerthe younger generations, and I think that
(33:09):
sometimes we don't always recognize that asmuch as we should, and we don't
always have the respect that we should, just generally speaking. I love that
my dad said to me when Isaid, what's it like getting older?
And he said, it's looking inthe mirror and not recognizing the old man
who's looking back at you when youstill feel like you're sixteen in your mind.
(33:32):
And you know, when I workedat the nursing home, that was
the thing that I thought was sojust you know, it weighed heavy on
me because people weren't being treated withthe same respect they would have been treated
with if they would have been thirtyinstead of ninety. And they had great
(33:52):
stories and they you know, hugehearts, and they appreciated their family appreciated
you so much. But you know, the body breaks down and you can't
do everything yourself anymore, and you'redepending on people that you hope will respect
and appreciate you as much as yourespect and appreciate yourself. Those are hard
hard people to find right well,and that's one of the reasons that we
(34:15):
have gotten so focused on dementia educationbecause really, there and Joys can speak
to this much better than I can. But if if you are not educated
on understanding dementia and understanding better waysto communicate with people living with dementia,
(34:37):
or understanding better what the various behaviorsmean, a lot of times people will
say, Oh, they're just beinghonrey, or they're just being spiteful,
or are they know better, orthey try, you know, to reorientate
them. Oh no, your husbandnot ten years ago, and you know,
(35:00):
if they're doing the best they canif they don't know. But that's
part of the reason that we areworking very hard to create a dementia friendly
valley. We are working towards dementiafriendly designations. We've received that in Harrisonburg
and Rockingham and in Lexington. Rightnow our Stanton Augusta Wayensboro office is working
(35:22):
on that, and then we willmove into Rockbridge County and bathen Holland and
that is a real designation. Thereare certain things that we have to accomplish
to receive that designation, but ourhope is to really be able to help
(35:42):
people everyday. People the clerk behindthe counter at the Delhi when they have
someone coming for their service and theyhave an awkward interact, well, maybe
with a little education, they canrecognize, oh, this person may be
(36:04):
struggling. One time, I wasat the grocery store and this elderly gentleman
went up to the deli and hewent like four pieces of chicken tenders or
something. Well, the person workingthe deli said, but we only sell
them by you know, by ounces. We don't sell them by pieces,
(36:29):
and they just I watched him goback and forth, and the man was
escalating because he didn't understand what theperson working the deli was trying to say.
She was getting very frustrated because hecouldn't follow what she was trying to
say. And you know, whycouldn't he just place his order the way
(36:49):
that everybody else did. And itended up being a very frustrating situation for
both of them. You could seeit in their faces and hear it in
their voices. And now you justthink, well, if that person took
one of our Dementia Friends at Workclasses, one hour class, if that
was offered, that could have beena very very different interaction. And so
(37:14):
Joyce has again had a leadership rolein leading that initiative. Can you talk
a little bit about our virtual DementiaTours to sure So. One of the
things that's really important is when weunderstand how somebody might be perceiving life in
their situation, we can better respond. The Virtual Dimensia Tour is a simulation.
(37:35):
It's not virtual like we think ofit now, but it's a simulation
where people come and they put onspecific garb that sort of mutes their senses
a little bit, similar to whatit would be like to live with dementia,
and then they're given some tasks todo and they find out what the
challenges are and remembering what you've beentold in actually accomplishing the tasks. And
(37:59):
then there's a debrief afterwards where wetalk about what you experienced, how you
felt about it, and how thismight impact how you care for people or
how you interact with people in thefuture. And so we offer those We
have one coming up. I believeit's June eighth, in Harrisonburg. But
that information is online and people cansign up for that and there's no charge,
(38:21):
and it is definitely a life changingexperience. So whether it's that or
the one hour Dementia Friendly or DementiaFriendly at Work, I really encourage our
community to find a way to geteducated and then find a way to help
your friends and family and neighbors whomaybe can't find someone to come in and
help in the home, but maybeyou can be that person who volunteers and
(38:42):
with a little bit of knowledge,you could do it well. These courses
are on your website. What's theaddress if we'd like to go and and
get more information. So the websiteis at vpass dot info. And if
you just look at caregiver or DementiaEducation, you'll find those, or you
can look at the calendar and seewhat's coming up. Excellent or just almost
out of time, Beth, Iwant to ask how much money you'd like
(39:04):
to raise during the Great Community Giveand how are you going to spend it?
So we would love to raise atleast twenty five thousand dollars. Of
course we would love to raise more, but we'll start there and all of
the money raised will be used forour meals on Wills program. When a
(39:30):
person comes to the pass, whetherit's for meals or transportation, caregiver support,
medicare, counseling, any of thewide menu services that we offer,
they are really enveloped in a supportivenetwork that helps them and supports them as
(39:52):
their needs change over time. Wetruly do help people navigate aging and we
want to be here for them whatevertheir needs are. So we do encourage
people to give us a call.All of our offices across our service area.
The contact information phone numbers are onour website, or they can also
(40:19):
just shoot us an email from ourwebsite. We keep our website very up
to date. We also have aFacebook page, we have a YouTube channel,
and we're on Instagram. So wewant to be here to really support
older adults. We do consider ourselvesa local experts in aging because our staff
(40:45):
have worked for so many years withus in the field of aging and are
very, very knowledgeable, and we'rereally here to help. Well, I've
really enjoyed this conversation because you know, I've heard of the past. Yes,
I sort of understood what you did. This was a great conversation and
I really appreciate all the work you'redoing for the older adults and their families
(41:08):
here in the Shenandoah Valley and yourregion, which had a lot of counties
that you were doing as a rapsong, which I don't for all of
them, but it's amazing work thatyou're doing. And I hope that you
not only hit your goal, butmaybe double or triple your goal so you
can do even more work with that. Crazy, We'll take that. Thank
you. Yeah. The Great CommunityGive is coming up on Wednesday, April
(41:30):
seventeenth. You can go to GreatCommunity Give dot org you point click and
give your minimum contribution seven dollars becauseit's a seventh anniversary this year, but
of course multiples of seven are acceptedto seventy seven hundred and seven thousand.
Hey go crazy, you know,whatever you can afford to do to help
(41:50):
nonprofits here in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. That's Great Community Give dot org Wednesday,
April seventeenth. Early giving is alsounderway. If you want to support
the Valley Program for Aging Services,you can write them a check and send
it to them drop it off atthe Waynesboro office, I would assume,
or you can whether the Harrisonburg officewould be fine too, excellent all right,
(42:10):
So if you want to give there, they'll make sure they make it
easy. We want to thank BethBland, the executive director of Valley Program
for Aging Services, also Joyce Nussbaum, who is the director of Senior Services
for Harrisonburg and Rockingham County, andgood luck with a great community. Give,
thank you, thank you very much. This has been Shenandoah Valley Business
Break. If you have an ideafor a future show, reach us at
(42:34):
the contact tab at NewsRadio WKCY dotcom. Find all past episodes by searching
Business Break on the iHeartRadio app.
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