LSS of Minnesota Making an International Impact
LSS considers itself a Minnesota
organization, helping about 100,000 Minnesotans each year through its
statewide work. What is done here sometimes has impact elsewhere. Minnesota
families often adopt children from South America and Eastern Europe through
LSS Adoption Services in Minnesota. Following are two other examples where
LSS is touching people in Russia, Germany and Iraq.
To Russia with Love
Mary Flynn, LSS Senior Companion program manager in Minneapolis, shared
this story of how one Senior Companion volunteer from Minneapolis changed
the lives of many seniors in a Moldavian community.
The Senior Companion volunteer
is Yakov Grichener. A Russian émigré, he has been a Senior Companion
volunteer since 1988. In a letter to his cousin, Zoya, a retired electrical
engineer and member of the city council of Kishinev, Moldova, Yakov
explained how the Senior Companion program in the U.S. works. He described
for his cousin how seniors volunteer to assist other frail seniors with
minor household chores, errands, and visits, and that they are compensated
through a small stipend that pays for mileage and lunch on the days they
volunteer. The program has been extremely successful in the U.S. over its
30-year history. Intrigued, Yakov's cousin shared the idea with her city
council. Here is the letter she sent to Yakov, slightly edited, that
explains what happened there as a result of Yakov's describing how the
Senior Companion Program works here.
Kishinev, Moldova (former
USSR)
April 2004
Dear and beloved Kladga and
Yakov!
May God bless you and save
you …
… Remember Yakov you told me
what you are doing as a volunteer doing good things for needy people and how
the government is taking care of the whole expenses necessary to keep the
business going.
Well, listen to what happened
in our city.
As you know, I am a member (a
passive one) of the city council. So in one of our meetings, I showed your
letter to one of the active city council members. He made me read the letter
out loud. The council listened, pretending that they were interested in it
and soon the whole thing was forgotten for good.
After four months, I got a
call from the vice president, asking me to come over with your letter.
To make a long story short,
soon after that, a lateral office was installed by the name of Seniors
Helping Seniors Club (SHS club). Many, many senior citizens showed up to be
enlisted as volunteers for that job. As about clients, they were a lot more
than enough. At present time I'm a "helping senior" or a Senior Companion
the way you are calling it. And I'm very proud and happy of it. We are a
team of 13 persons and we are doing a wonderful job helping out many lonely
old and handicapped people.
We don't get paid, of course,
but we have a lot of benefits. The most important benefit is to know that
I'm on a job. I'm busy with something; I'm useful for somebody else. Beside,
we get free bus and streetcar tickets. I can go any day, anytime and
everywhere without paying a Koneek (penny). When I'm with my client, we ride
for free, both of us. Can you imagine how happy I made some of my clients to
take them to church for free! One 93-year-old woman all she wants is to take
her out and to ride all around the city and places she has never been for 30
years.
Five days per week we get
free meals at the city canteen, very good food. Our pictures are in the
local newspapers.
I can't begin to thank you
for your letter you send to me. I wish I could speak loudly about it. Our
manager is telling everybody that the SHS club is his idea. Anyway, it's not
important whose idea it is. The idea is great and is working excellent.
How's your health? And how
are your children ….
Zoya
A Big Valentine to Servicemen
Dorothy Kersten, an Annandale Middle School teacher, shared with Sally
Custer the details of her trip to Germany to visit her son, Captain Dan
Kersten, who is stationed in the military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany as
a staff dentist. Dorothy mentioned that the hospitalized U.S. servicemen
from Iraq and the Middle East appreciated so much the letters they received
from home.
That's when Sally Custer, an LSS
Foster Grandparent volunteer at the school, got an idea: launch a
school-wide project that would involve classes writing to servicemen in the
hospital. Each class had a folder into which original Valentine letters were
written. Some students included candy, original writings, and, even, some
Christmas cards.
Captain Dan Kersten distributed
the letters to servicemen hospitalized at Landstuhl. Another officer, Marine
Sergeant Jason Johnson, also serving in Iraq, made a visit to the students
to tell them about the war firsthand. Sally kept in email contact with
another father who was stationed in Kuwait, apprising him of his daughter's
progress in middle school.
"I was warmed to see how
involved the students became in this project. Each one seemed to share
something personal with the servicemen," Sally said. Captain Kersten sent
back photos via email to Sally and the students. "When Captain Kersten said
that some of the servicemen never receive letters from home, I knew, then,
the importance of what the students had done," she said.
