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Synopsis (summarize, bold key concepts): “The heart of the program (Partners in Care) is that no matter where you are in life you have something to give back in the community,” she said. “If we get people to use their talents for others, more people could stay happily, and more importantly, healthily in their communities.”

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Partners In Care: 20 years of service and counting





By E.B. FURGURSON III Staff Writer

Posted on January 20, 2013

Katherine Edgar depends on the kindness of strangers. But once they meet the Pasadena resident, who will turn 100 in October, they don’t stay strangers for long.

She and hundreds of other senior citizens get a helping hand from the all-volunteer Partners In Care, now celebrating its 20th anniversary helping seniors maintain their independence.

Edgar gets an occasional ride to doctors’ offices and other appointments via Partners In Care’s Ride Partners program, the most popular of the organization’s handful of efforts.

She got a lift to the dentist last week from Delores Reuter, a Partners In Care volunteer for 18 years. Reuter has chauffeured the nonagenarian before and they soon became like fast friends.

“I know she uses Estée Lauder,” said Reuter, who used to be a cosmetics buyer for the now-vanished Hutzler’s department stores, as the diminutive Edgar nodded.

Soon Edgar was chatting away about her past. “I was born on Edmonston Avenue, and I worked for Mr. Edmonston,” she said. In later years she moved to a farm outside Cambridge.

The back and forth is an unintended though welcome — and important — consequence of the Partners service.

“It is not only a ride, it becomes a social relationship,” said Partners founder and CEO Barbara Huston.

This personal engagement is one of the primary rewards of years spent volunteering, mostly providing rides, Reuter said.

“I was widowed, and when I recovered, I wanted to give something back,” she said. “My life has been enriched because of the opportunity to meet so many wonderful people that Partners In Care has given me.”

Beginnings

Twenty years ago, three Severna Park women finishing advanced studies in gerontology and health care administration gathered around a kitchen table.

“We wanted to do something different,” Huston said.

They read a study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation about the concept of service exchanges — creating a network in which people provide services to others and earn points in a “bank” from others in the program. They liked the idea and Partners In Care was born.

“The heart of the program is that no matter where you are in life you have something to give back in the community,” she said. “If we get people to use their talents for others, more people could stay happily, and more importantly, healthily in their communities.”

They started with 13 volunteer drivers and 13 people who needed rides. By the end of that first year, they had 100 in the program.

Now there are 1,800 active members in four locations. Aside from the largest network in Anne Arundel County, others have opened up in Calvert, Frederick and Talbot counties.

“Over the years we have evolved into far more than we could have imagined,” Huston said.

The programs have evolved organically.

From the Ride Partners program five others have sprouted — home repair, emergency kits for seniors, a dedicated bus for members who use wheelchairs, the Partners In Care Boutique on Ritchie Highway in Pasadena, and a fledgling member-care program providing research, referral and other services.

Helping hands

The Repairs with Care program, which provides handyman services for members, was the idea of several women who were Ride Partners participants.

“They thought, rather than having to find a guy to do the work, and pay $100, how about some handymen?” Huston recalled.

So, with a small grant from the United Way, several handymen were recruited. Now members can get a broken window replaced, a new flapper installed in the bathroom, and all sorts of small jobs done.

Most importantly, the work is done via Partners In Care, by someone they trust.

Last year about 500 jobs were done for members. Mark Schatz in Glen Burnie has just had a man in to fix broken tiles in the bathroom.

“They did a nice job,” Schatz said. “The volunteers are so nice, they are prompt and take care of you.”

He also has had gutters cleaned. Since he has stopped driving he and his wife have used the ride program.

Neighbors

The services help keep folks in their homes, living independently for as long as possible.

“It’s often the difference between staying in your home and having to move someplace new, and up to eight times more costly,” Huston said. “It is a network of people in your life that you see regularly, which keeps you healthier, more active and engaged.”

And the programs are not set in stone — there is flexibility.

“We let people do for each other how they do for each other,” Huston said. “The way they do things among neighbors in Brooklyn Park may or may not be the way they do for one another in Shady Side.”

The annual budget is about $1 million. Grants provide about 40 percent of the funding. Sales at the boutique provide another 30 percent. The rest comes from fundraisers and individual and corporate donations.

“In these economic times, if it were not for the boutique, we might not have made it,” Huston said.

The organization is now celebrating its 20th anniversary with monthly events and a different volunteer honoree each month.

This month, Partners In Care is honoring Reuter and her 18 years of service, which not only includes providing hundreds of rides but also gardening at Partners In Care’s headquarters and providing centerpieces for functions.

Each month’s events will be underwritten by a local outfit; January’s sponsor is Maryland Primary Care Physicians.

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