Some call them the greatest generation but hearing the list of serious needs, lack of support and family disinterest nearing abandonment, many of today’s senior citizens could be better labeled the forgotten treasures.
A small group of devoted and passionate saviors work tirelessly to ensure Española Valley’s senior citizens get the proper care and attention needed. The brainchild of the Valley’s two United Methodist churches, with the help of an $11,087 grant in 1976, Amigos del Valle was formed to fill that cavernous need that falls between Medicare-supported treatment and Social Security checks.
Seniors need so much more than what’s government-provided. And Amigos employees say the break-down of the family structure has left them in a perilous position.
From its inception, leadership and Board member posts gradually migrated to Valley View Church. Board members dropped off or moved away and Rev. Dennis Heffner said he found himself operating the whole show from his church.
Today the group is composed of one full-time and two part-time care providers, led by part-time office manager Liz Garcia and volunteer CEO Heffner. They are overseen by a Board of 10 led by Jill Velarde. All the care providers, Garcia and Heffner serve as ex-officio members.
The boots-on-ground people are Ramona Chavez, who’s been there since 1979; Margaret Sisneros, about to celebrate five years with the group; and newcomer Debra Borrego, there a scant two years, but deeply involved in the services she provides. They’re called care providers but they’re so much more.
“Seniors are timid and not always sure of what they just sabe’d,” Heffner said in a July 29 interview. “You hear of the need. You hear the situations many seniors are in and it gets my hackles up.”
Heffner is referring to those with limited income, unable to drive, a diminished capacity to hear and understand, a family not helping, and, in some cases making it tougher for the senior, often a widow or widower.
Enter people like Borrego who can be categorized as anything but a ride for her senior clients, who by all accounts worship her presence. She’s a retired Motor Vehicle Division employee who was recommended to fill a slot by a Board member. It was a match made in heaven.
Borrego is supposed to work 20 hours a week but easily logs 35.
“Then I go home and journal,” she said during a ride-along July 25.
And she journals. She makes detailed notes about who she picked up, when and where they went. If there were any problems, it’s annotated.
And she doesn’t just pick people up. She goes into their homes, looks around, asks polite questions. Heffner said more than anything the providers are making sure there’s food in the house, heat in the winter, and not an abusive relationship or possibly drugs or alcohol.
Senior Account
“I need so much help,” Amy Sanchez said on a recent ride to Eye Associates in Santa Fe. “My brother was riding with Amigos before me so he can’t help me.”
Sanchez’ husband is also a client. She said he can drive sometimes but shouldn’t. Family and neighbors can’t help much either.
“They have their own problems,” Sanchez said. “They don’t need mine too.”
Borrego sees this continually. Where many of her clients live alone, some live with younger family members with their own struggles. The seniors are left to fend for themselves with limited resources.
“They need a lot of help,” Borrego said.
Services Provided
Amigos has about 176 seniors on its rolls. The organization defines a senior as someone over 62 years of age.
In two weeks Borrego said she’ll easily see 25 of them, some two or three times.
It’s not a glorified taxi service. On the other end of the pick-up is the drop-off at a doctor’s appointment or maybe a dentist or physical therapist. Borrego goes in with the clients, signs them in and makes sure they’re seen. Often she goes into the examination room to do what Heffner describes as translating.
“Seniors don’t get all this technical jargon and often don’t understand the diagnosis or prescription,” he said. “Debra and Ramona explain in English (or Spanish) what the doctor said and what the client needs to do.”
Then it’s off to the pharmacy or drug store to get a prescription or some sort of device for physical therapy. If the client doesn’t know how to use the device, the care provider explains and walks the client through it. Prescriptions and dosages are explained in detail.
Heffner said the group flirted with a good samaritan model in the 1980s but couldn’t come up with the $100,000 the group wanted to build and operate a senior center and Amigos would lose control of care for the seniors. That was a deal-breaker.
“It wasn’t a good fit and we moved forward,” he said.
The group operates on its $123,000 budget with a $65,000 grant from United Way of Northern New Mexico and three fund-raisers each year. They get additional support from relatively smaller local grants. Their biggest expenses are the four paid positions, followed by gasoline and automobile maintenance and insurance.
Ramona Chavez said when she was recruited by Heffner in 1979, she drove her own car for five years. She didn’t remember the model, year, or how many miles she drove but it was a lot.
“Dennis came into Dr. Yordy’s office for a shot and he said I should come work for Amigos,” Chavez said.
Chavez had been a licensed scrub nurse for Dr. Sam Ziegler and Dr. Merle Yordy. After almost 20 years in the medical field, she knew how to care for people and needed a change.
“I didn’t want to work as a nurse anymore and I knew grandpas and grandmas need help,” she said. “I knew how to provide that.”
Chavez is the only full-time employee and her numbers show that. During July she said she took care of 67 people and 41 were unique, meaning 26 were assisted more than once during the month.
After 32 years working for Amigos, clients ask her when she’s going to retire.
“I have my health,” she said. “Why would I quit? I see this need. They (seniors) really need help.”
That mantra is repeated often from Garcia in the office manager position to Heffner and the care providers to the seniors.
Co-Rider
Borrego picked up Emma Sisneros for the same trip to Santa Fe. Sisneros was waiting for her at the senior center in Alcalde. She had been transported there by the senior center van, which picks up seniors around the area and takes them to the center for a meal, conversation, maybe an activity or two, and an opportunity to get out of the house.
“It’s very hard getting old but being sick is the worst part,” Sisneros said.
Sisneros suffered a stroke in 2003 that resulted in many complications since. She ticked off several trips she had made with Borrego during July. These are trips she couldn’t make without Amigos.
“I could pay a neighbor $20 but that’s just a ride, maybe,” she said. “They’ll drop me off and pick me up, but Debbie is an angel from heaven.”
Sisneros is referring to Borrego going into the offices and taking care of paperwork and getting the seniors the respect they deserve.
Senior Respect
Borrego told the story of a trip to a dentist the second week of July. She left the client at the office as Borrego had to go drop off another client elsewhere. She came back and the lady at the dentist was in the waiting room.
“‘That was fast,’ I told her,” Borrego recalls. “She had gone into the exam room, waited about 30 minutes and they sent her back out without treating her.”
Borrego questioned the receptionist, who said they had overbooked, sorry, bring her back in a few weeks. Borrego was having none of that.
“I explained I wasn’t running these trips for the dentist’s convenience,” Borrego said. “She made the appointment; I made them keep it.”
The tech wasn’t happy but performed a molding process on the woman for dentures. That night Borrego got a call from the woman. She couldn’t get the clay off her teeth. Borrego tracked down a dentist and found out how to clean off the clay. She called the woman and explained it to her — crisis averted.
Funding Help
Amigos holds three fundraisers each year, the biggest being the Butch Archuleta/Gene Finch golf tournament. It used to bring in more, but the proliferation of golf tournaments has diluted the fund-raising and golfing pool.
The second fundraiser is the big garage sale, held Aug. 6 at the Valley View Church parking lot. Donations were strong and a good-sized crowd pawed through items varying from kitchen gadgets to stoves and clothes.
Almost the entire Board was on hand helping people, stacking items and encouraging sales. Board member Pres Garcia said he was on the Board because local seniors need help and it was his way of doing his part.
The third fundraiser was a pancake breakfast the Kiwanis used to sponsor for Amigos. But the club thinned and Heffner moved to selling concessions at the Sacred Heart Church bazaar. Politics of some sort ended that. So he’s seeking a third option.
He said he wasn’t concerned; there always seems to be someone out there willing to help, even sometimes when they don’t know they helped.
During the gas outage in early February, Heffner said everyone made the rounds checking on clients. Borrego came across a man who depended solely on wood to heat his house and he was out.
“He had picked up every piece of paper, every stick from his yard to burn,” Heffner said. “Debra found him sitting in front of this little fire wrapped in almost all the clothes he had.”
Heffner said he got in his truck, went to a friend’s house and “stole” a truckload of wood. He scattered it to many houses in need. He later called the “wood donor,” who was out of town, and told him of his procurement and the gas outage situation.
He took in several arm-fulls to the man without heat and asked, “Will that keep you through the night? I’ll bring a truckload tomorrow.”
The man said it would last him a week. Heffner asked why the man didn’t call for help.
“He said he didn’t want to be a bother,” Heffner said. “What humility. Here’s this guy quite possibly freezing to death and he didn’t want to bother us. You compare him to some of the people around here on your front page and you know someplace there has to be justice.”
Wood gets cut by whomever Heffner can rope into it. Rotarians have taken a few trips to the mountains.
Chavez said she used to use the prisoners in the city jail.
“I’d go ask the judge to give me some kids who needed to do community service and I’d take my husband’s truck and we’d go cut wood,” she said.
Then she’d deliver it.
Exit Strategy
Heffner said he’s trying to work his way out of the director slot. He plans to retire in a few years and would like to see a smooth transition next spring for Amigos. So he’s seeking someone to replace him in a part-time position.
“It needs to be someone with a passion to care for seniors,” he said.
The management, day-to-day issues and fund-raising can be done by anyone with a little business sense. But that extra length Heffner and his care providers go to is what’s needed in the new leader. Anyone interested in replacing Heffner should contact him directly at 753-4115.
“Pushing paper is one thing, but to know you really did something significant and made a difference in someone’s life is big,” Heffner said.
Heffner said the group offers security and help where there is no other resource.
“These are people of dignity and they should be treated as such,” he said.
Amigos is the epitome of the greatest generation label, and their collective dedication to the job and the extra time and effort they all put into every small task is their way of making sure each senior helped can hold up their head with dignity and that great humility Heffner says he sees continually.