The community of Good Works has been involved in the life of seniors, especially widows, since 1980 when Keith Wasserman established a home visitation program in the fall of 1980 prior to opening the shelter.  The program, established that year through three local churches also included the class Counseling the Older Adult. During the late 1990s, Good Works established Neighbors Helping Neighbors (formerly Samaritan Projects) to assist widows and citizens with disabilities at their homes with hands-on, practical, labor intensive service.  Each year, many volunteers partner with us to assist these citizens with the vision to “make the widows heart sing” (Job 29:13) About eight years ago, Good Works re-established an intentional outreach of visitation to seniors, especially widows at their homes. Emily Axe is the coordinator for this season. For additional information, click here for our Volunteer Opportunities page. To contact Emily, call 740-594-3339, or email us.

A note from Amanda, former coordinator of Senior Friends:

     During the years I was privileged to oversee Senior Friends, I saw myself as a “facilitator of relationships” rather than a volunteer coordinator. Senior Friends continues to be an opportunity for residents of Athens County to connect with each other. We seek volunteers who are interested in intentionally cultivating relationships with seniors or home-bound individuals who live in our county.
     The initial relationship with potential Senior Friends is established through Neighbors Helping Neighbors. During the Samaritan Project application process, each person is asked if he or she is interested in having someone visit on a regular basis. That “someone” who would coordinate those visits is Emily Axe.
      Emily will be privileged to be led through the doorway of those Neighbors Helping Neighbors relationships into something much deeper than home repair: a place where we desire to build lasting relationships with valuable members of our community who may not always be shown appreciation for their wisdom, perspective and the lives they have lived and are living.
      I had the honor of facilitating relationships and coordinating Senior Friends since 2007, and I am now passing the torch along to Emily. In those short few years, I was blessed to cultivate remarkable relationships and to see relationships between Senior Friends matches flourish! I really valued the opportunity to see the interaction between the “volunteer” and the “senior” transform into relationships of mutuality that alter each person’s life in countless positive ways!
      While I will deeply miss the opportunity to interact regularly with such wonderful women and men, I am grateful that Emily is able to enter the role I have cherished over the past few years. She is a caring woman who will give her own flavor to Senior Friends and the special activities; I am looking forward to seeing the continued growth and development of Senior Friends under her leadership!

A note from Emily, current coordinator of Senior Friends:

I am very excited to step into Amanda’s shoes and facilitate Senior Friends.  Over the past two years with Good Works, I have grown to know many of the older women and men in our community and I am a different person because of these relationships.  They have wisdom and life to give and are often just looking for a friend to be with them and advocate for them.  I still have much to learn but am grateful for this opportunity to see lives connected. I pray that each of our matches find joy and hope in the lives of their senior and that as we take time to simply be with one another love is the main result.

A note from Tara Tomko, a former Appalachian Immersion Intern with Good Works who focused on Senior Friends:

    As an Appalachian Immersion Intern I have many responsibilities. Generally, I enjoy all of them. But my favorite is Senior Friends. Coming to Good Works has surfaced many discoveries and gifts in myself that I not know of before. One of these gifts is a connection to people, and a deep sense of caring and compassion for people.
    Senior Friends has given me chance to develop this gift and a constant opportunity to use it. I am grateful to God this opportunity I had to be a part of this program, and I am grateful for all the wonderful women I have met. I am grateful for their wisdom and their tea, Pepsi and stuffed animals. But most of all, I am grateful for their friendship, love and acceptance!

Here is a note from Maria (Fisher) Baer, who, with her newly wed husband, became friends with a wonderful couple who lives in Southeast Ohio through Good Works:

     A month or so ago, my fiancé Aaron and I started visiting with Albert and Diane, a couple in SE Ohio. We went into it with the hopes that God would use us to minister to this sweet couple who probably didn’t get a lot of other visitors. I should have known, though, that God was going to use them to minister to us just as much as I hoped we would minister to them!
     Albert and Diane are timid, but so joyful. They both have a little trouble getting around – Albert is in a wheelchair due to hip trouble and Diane has some knee problems. But they are still “up and about” – always getting us coffee, or playing with their little blonde grandson, Stephen, when he comes to visit. When we visit, we talk about school, grandkids, the way God has worked in our lives, the Bible…computer games, trips to Texas, thriller movies, childhoods…all the sorts of things you’d imagine friends talk about on Wednesday afternoons.
     And I think that’s what’s so fun and special about it - Aaron and I get to learn and share with these people whom we’d never have met if God didn’t orchestrate it. We couldn’t be more different from them in terms of where we are in our lives. But we have already learned so much from them; about love and God and happiness and service. They don’t have much, but they run a food pantry out of their living room for the needy in their neighborhood. They’re the type of people I picture Jesus looking at and being so excited – they make it so easy for him to love others through them.
     I’m so grateful we decided to share some time with them – but more so that they’ve decided to share with us! It’s so much fun to have found such a treasure in them, in such a small, quiet Ohio town. God truly is everywhere, I think.

    “Where two or more are gathered, there I am in the midst of them.” Matthew 18:20