Following is a November update from MY Neighbors:
- We continue to grow steadily. As of late November, 73 Volunteers are providing services to 88 Members with an additional four Members in process.A steady flow of Yancey residents contact us about joining MY Neighbors.Their greatest need is transportation, and many are in need of financial assistance with the Membership fee, which we are able to provide.
- We need Volunteers. Like many of the fine small nonprofits in our area, we rely on volunteers to fulfill our mission.Not only are membership numbers running ahead of volunteers—a number of our Volunteers are either seasonal residents or have limited weekly availability.In an average month only around 35 Volunteers fill service requests.Most Volunteers fill only one or two requests a month, although a handful choose to do weekly trips with Members.During October we filled 61 service requests, our busiest month since inception in the spring of 2017.Our requests are approximately 90% for transportation, mostly for grocery shopping and doctor’s appointments.
Our best advertising is word of mouth, so if you have a friend or neighbor who might be interested in helping, please have them contact us by emailing myneighborsmail@gmail.com or calling 828-295-2412. We do a 90 minute orientation of new Volunteers each month. Our ability to serve our Members is directly proportional to our ability to grow our Volunteer base.
- We got $$$!! We recently received a grant from the new AMY Wellness Foundation to reimburse Volunteer drivers at the IRS rate of 58 cents per mile.While we have always been willing to reimburse drivers, most Volunteers have generously donated their mileage.But now we have funds earmarked for this purpose that are intended to be used within the next twelve months.We hope these funds will help us to attract new Volunteers and will also make it easier to find drivers for our 10-12 monthly trips to Asheville and other “out of area” destinations, nearly all of which are for doctors’ appointments.Volunteers who wish will be reimbursed on a quarterly basis by our crackerjack treasurer, Stacy Oates.
- Finally, we have enabled Volunteer Self-Signup (VSS), a module for our website that will allow interested Volunteers to sign in on the web site, see what service requests are available, and sign up for service requests themselves. Other Villages that have implemented VSS have seen the Call Managers' workload decrease considerably. In addition to signing up for service requests, Volunteers will also be able to adjust their weekly availability, set their vacation calendars, modify their emergency contact information, and close completed requests.Don’t want to spend more time on the computer?No worries, our Call Manager system will continue to operate as it always has.Our hope is simply that as Volunteers begin to use VSS, the Call Managers’ workload will moderate. Our timeline for VSS is for Call Managers to familiarize themselves with the module in the coming weeks and then open it to Volunteers in the New Year.
Members and Volunteers, invitations are arriving soon for our Winter Holiday Social on December 10th from noon-1:30 pm at the Burnsville Library! Please rsvp and join us as we celebrate another year together. As another year races toward a close, we thank you for your continued support of MY Neighbors.
Chip Poston
Board Chair