By Russ Lawrence
The Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) for Ravalli County has moved to new quarters on Hamilton’s Main Street, and they’ll be hosting an open house on Monday, August 24, to showcase their new location, and to introduce their new Director, Colleen Murphy Southwick.
The occasion will also be a chance to fete RSVP’s outgoing director, Sharon Bladen, who turned over the reins to Southwick in May. The public is welcome to stop by the new office, at 401 W. Main Street, Suite B, between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., to wish Bladen well, and to find out what’s new with the program.
One recent change is the “and” in their name, Southwick pointed out. That makes it clearer that one needn’t be retired in order to participate in RSVP’s program, which matches volunteers aged 55 and older with organizations in need of help.
RSVP was created in 1969 as part of the Older Americans Act, and has been active in Ravalli County for 12 years. The program provides opportunities for persons aged 55 and older to apply their life experiences and skills to meet critical community needs. Non-profit organizations, public agencies, faith-based groups, and health care organizations may be eligible to participate as potential sites for such volunteers.
Their most recent census showed 202 volunteers working with 56 sites locally, according to Ravalli County RSVP Volunteer Coordinator Janelle Corn. That’s significantly above the average for the other four counties in the area that Southwick oversees, and they would be happy to accommodate more.
Southwick came to the job following a career in health sciences, holding a Ph.D. in Social Psychology, with an emphasis on Health Psychology. Her recent teaching and research has focused, in many instances, on successful aging.
This dovetails well with the program’s emerging emphasis on helping seniors with issues of healthy aging, and aging-in-place. “Our goal is to get volunteers aged 55-plus to help their neighbors in their homes,” Southwick said. This has the dual benefit of supporting people who might otherwise require institutional care, while enriching the lives of volunteers.
“People who volunteer live longer, happier, healthier lives,” Southwick observed.
Southwick is loving her new job. Her previous consulting, research and teaching work with universities located in Missoula, Laramie, and Denver involved a lot of commuting. “Now I work five minutes from home, for something that meets my passion,” she smiled.
RSVP was previously housed in the Council on Aging facility on Old Corvallis Road, but that agency has also grown, and needed the space. Southwick was pleased to find space available in downtown Hamilton, where potential volunteers and work sites have easier access.
“We want people to get used to just walking in the door,” Southwick said, pointing out a large meeting table that’s available for client use. She gave kudos to neighbor and landlord Barry Whitmore of State Farm Insurance, for making it possible for RSVP to move in.
“He wanted to offer the space for ‘something that mattered,’” she said.
The move went smoothly, with the help of volunteers from the Trapper Creek Job Corps Center. “They made it possible,” Southwick said, pointing out the furniture and filing cabinets that had to be moved. “It ties our story together – two government agencies that are here to help.”
Volunteers don’t work for RSVP itself, Southwick explained. “We are the middleman,” starting a conversation between volunteers and work sites. Agencies can specify requirements for potential volunteers, and those volunteers complete an admission form that helps identify their skills, strengths, and interests.
As a scientist, Southwick supports RSVP’s new emphasis on volunteer opportunities with “reportable outcomes,” such as measurable changes in individuals’ sense of social support, or nutrition security. The marriage of “hard science” with psychology is appealing to her, as she’s gained respect for the ways in which such attitudes can be reliably measured.
“Show me that it does some good; show me the outcomes,” she said, noting that such information also helps lawmakers with funding decisions.
The program counts such diverse work sites as Meals on Wheels, the Hospice program at Marcus Daly Memorial Hospital, Pantry Partners, North Valley Public Library, Bitterroot Red Sox, and the Ravalli County Museum. Priority focus areas for the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees the program, include Education, Healthy Futures, Economic Opportunity, Veterans and Military Families, Environmental Stewardship, and Disaster Services.
The program also identifies community priorities, and finds ways to match up volunteers and work sites to address those.
Participating work sites benefit from the program’s tracking of volunteer hours and volunteer recognition events; volunteers, in turn, are covered by liability insurance while “on-duty,” and benefit from the support that RSVP provides.
To meet a portion of their self-funding requirements—and to give people a taste for volunteering—RSVP will be selling gyros at the Ravalli County Fair, Southwick said.
The RSVP office is open Mondays and Thursdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (closed at noon for lunch), and Tuesdays 1 to 5 p.m., or reach them by phone at 363-1102.