Center on Aging connects isolated seniors with visitors, BDN reports
The Bangor Daily News reported on Senior Companion, a volunteer program at the University of Maine Center on Aging that provides companionship to isolated, elderly residents. The program has 85 volunteers who visit roughly 350 seniors a week in their homes. Volunteers get a small stipend of $2.65 an hour, plus 30 cents per mile for gas. “The volunteers say they get as much out of the program as the clients do,” said Terri Eldridge, with the Center on Aging. “It’s important to feel needed and have something to do. They feel like this is a job, and the clients come to feel like family.”