In 2024, Fairfield Cares surveyed Jefferson County residents who have either received or assisted in home healthcare in the last five years. The response was over 300 surveys, which revealed the increasing need for a more robust solution that connects those who need help with those who wish to help.
Town Hall Meeting on April 26
A free meeting that will cover the results of the home healthcare survey will be held on Saturday, April 26, 1–3:30 p.m., at the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center. The meeting will also include information about Fairfield Cares Helpful Village, a question-and-answer session, information on becoming a member and requesting services without any fee, and an opportunity for volunteers to sign up.
Fairfield Cares Helpful Village
Helpful Village is an online platform. It’s designed to expand the connections we can create in our community. Towns and cities across the U.S. are successfully using this platform. Members can log in or call to ask for specific help, such as a ride to a doctor’s appointment, help with shopping, or bringing meals.
Fairfield Cares connects you to a volunteer who can fulfill that need. It also helps connect people to resources such as government programs, paid providers of home healthcare, and local paid services such as plumbers, electricians, or general home maintenance.
This kind of help has enabled many people in Fairfield to continue living longer in their own homes instead of moving to an assisted living facility or a nursing home. This is something that people are very grateful for.
UC Berkeley Professor Andrew Scharlach, a prestigious scholar in the field of social welfare who analyzed the “Village” model, said, “Villages represent a promising new model, with the potential for positively affecting seniors in ways that may reduce social isolation, expand access to services, increase well-being, and increase seniors’ confidence in their ability to age in their homes.”
Volunteering—Universal Love Molecules
The Helpful Village model allows volunteers complete flexibility in how much and what kind of help they choose to offer. You can volunteer just to help a specific friend. And most people prefer to accept help from those they already know. Some special angels also volunteer to help those who have no other support system and are most in need.
Human beings are social animals, and helping one another is a powerful urge. Our brains produce a tremendous reward of good feeling and happiness when we help another. People who have been involved with Fairfield Cares in helping others report that nothing gives them greater fulfillment. Volunteers have always found that they get more than they give.
How Fairfield Cares Got Started
Fairfield Cares started at a 2017 Fairfield town hall meeting about our aging population, led by Jennifer Hamilton. When Jennifer asked for a show of hands for who would wish to remain at home as they aged, 400 hands went up. After that meeting, an action group was formed to explore how to make that possible. We decided to focus not just on elders, but also on anybody who needed help.
We researched many solutions to try to find the ones that were most effective. We decided on Meal Train. Meal Train is an online software service that allows a local Meal Train organizer to connect someone in need to volunteers who can help. A group of friends organizes times to bring meals, give rides, help with small tasks, and so on. Usually the help is short term, for instance while someone is recovering from an operation or accident. For those who need ongoing help, we found that the best solution was a team of volunteers.
In 2018 we formed a nonprofit organization, Fairfield Cares Inc., which has now provided help to many people in Jefferson County. But the need keeps growing. And this is why we are adopting the Helpful Village platform.
A Community Working Together
Our profound thanks goes to the Greater Jefferson County Foundation and the Fairfield City Council for grants that made the survey possible, to the Fairfield Public Library for their wonderful support, to the many volunteers that helped distribute and collect the paper surveys, to all the people who took their time to fill out the survey, and especially to Elaine Hughes, who wrote the grant applications and masterminded the entire survey process.
The Home Caregivers and Care Receivers Survey project was a powerful example of local people working together as a community. Fairfield is indeed a Helpful Village.
For more information, email fairfieldcares@lisco.com.