What did you do this summer? Vinalhaven Eldercare Services has quite the list for this commonly asked question. Its new wheelchair-accessible van hit the road, another auction fundraiser was successfully staged, and 10 years at the Ivan Calderwood Homestead were celebrated—significant milestones for any island nonprofit in such shaky economic times.
The Homestead and Vinalhaven Eldercare Services’ (VES) longevity is a result of a “very, very supportive community,” says Linda Lynch, the group residence’s administrator since 2007. Without local fundraising and volunteer efforts, “it would be very difficult for us to complete our mission, which is to allow people to age in place, to stay here for the remainder of their days.”
According to Lynch, the Homestead is reimbursed at an assisted living rate. “When people start to age and they become a higher level of care, we have to have more staff, and we have to pay for that from fundraising,” she says.
Community support is vital to fill a significant financial shortfall every year, according to VES co-president Elin Elisofon. “We really need to build an endowment,” she says. “If we did, we could use the interest from it to help make up the shortfall every year.
“It costs more to care for people than reimbursements provide,” Elisofon says. But VES also offers several services free to the community that they say they are committed to continue offering and have to be paid for by fundraising. These include Medic Alert Phones, Meals on Wheels and a transportation program.
VES now owns a wheelchair-accessible van, a purchase made possible by a grant from the Maine Community Foundation, donations and fundraising. The van makes travel easier for Homestead residents and community members confined to wheelchairs and is “a great asset to the elderly,” Lynch says. “They can get into the van with ease, no one has to pull and tug on them. We’re not taking the chance of injuring them or our staff.”
Although raising the necessary funds is hard work, Lynch says it hasn’t been a problem so far because of the island’s generosity. VES has several key fundraisers, including the Bottle Brigade, a local recycling program run by volunteers who sort and send returnables to the mainland all year. This less-than-glamorous job brings in about $12,000 annually, according to Lynch.
The annual Eldercare Auction is also a huge help, generating about one-third of VES’s revenue according to auction organizer Hazel Smith. Smith has helped put together the auction for the past four years and says in the past three it has raised between $17,000 and $20,000 annually. This year’s auction, held August 7, featured locals and summer visitors bidding high on items from businesses and individual donors, including a sailboat, lobster bakes, artwork and gift certificates.
Among the most popular items: homemade pies baked by island native Dallas Anthony. His fresh blueberry, strawberry and mixed berry pies brought in bids ranging from $35 to $100. “He is an outstanding chef,” Lynch says. While trying to start a bid on a woodstove, auctioneer and longtime VES volunteer Phil Crossman joked, “There’s a pie inside!”
VES is “a vital part of keeping the community alive,” says Elisofon. “Taking care of young people, making sure they have a good education, good opportunities and affordable places to live is important, but it’s also important to keep elders here who are a part of our families and the community. They help hold the community together and give a sense of place.”
Over 100 community members gathered at the Homestead on July 24 to celebrate its 10th anniversary. Past VES presidents Geno Lazaro and Dennis Warren and volunteer Merle Webster cooked lobsters donated by local lobstermen for the crowd, and VES members shared stories of making the late Ivan Calderwood’s dream of a residence for the elderly on Vinalhaven a reality.
When it first opened in June 2001, the Homestead was a six-room adult family-care home, but “we couldn’t make it financially,” Lynch says. “To add two more beds, we had to become an assisted living facility” to comply with state rules. With this came many regulations. “That’s been the biggest change and the hardest one because with the assisted living regulations, they regulate us just the same as a facility with 80 or 100 beds,” she says.
But the Homestead is no 100-bed institution. “There are flowers, beautiful, healthy, thriving plants. There are cats walking in and out, you can smell home cooking going on,” says Elisofon. “It really has the most welcoming, warm feeling.”
Familiar faces also help make the house a home. “The people who work here know who the residents are, they know their families,” says Elisofon. “Sometimes they’re even related to them.”
Residents’ local families and friends are able to visit more easily and frequently than if they lived in a facility on the mainland. One lobsterman, Elisofon describes, often visits his mother after long days on the water. “I’ll walk by her room and see him watching the news with her at night. He’ll come in from fishing, have a shower and come up and spend an hour or so with his mother. That’s what it’s all about,” she says. “If she were on the mainland, who knows how often he’d get to see her—maybe on Sundays during the summer,” when lobstering is prohibited.
The Homestead has been home to 33 residents in its eight rooms over the past decade, says Elisofon. “When you think about how the lives of 33 island families have been affected by keeping a family member here, that’s significant.”
Claire Carter is a resident of Vinalhaven and a participant in The Working Waterfront’s Student Journalism Program.