Melabev Beit Shemesh is pleased to announce the recent formation of a local Home Visiting Committee. Melabev volunteer Sue Robins, a part-time resident of Beit Shemesh has modeled the committee on the American Kehilath Jeshurun Bikur Cholim which she heads in New York. Sue has worked extensively with homebound and hospitalized patients for many years.
"Healthy people who live normal autonomous lives cannot imagine the loneliness and boredom a homebound person may experience," Sue explains, "Chronic isolation can foster tremendous frustration and despair. Our goal is to provide the homebound senior with a fitting and dedicated person who can bring the news and beauty of the outside world through their front door.”
All Home Visit Volunteers are trained by Sue Robins in the art of home visitation. Sue has written a list of do's and don'ts as well as clever techniques for starting a conversation and pleasant ways to pass the time. Confidentiality is emphasized as well as commitment, and every volunteer is carefully screened for eligibility.
The Home Visit Committee has over fifteen volunteers, each of whom are paired up with a homebound senior who would enjoy and benefit from a personal weekly visit. Home Visit volunteers initially spend time learning which activities their particular senior enjoys. Some people really like card games or scrabble. Others prefer to look through family albums or chat about current events. Sometimes homebound elders need help with shopping or other simple errands, which certain volunteers are able to do. Elderly homebound men are often delighted to have a weekly chavrusa.
"But the most important thing," says Sue "is companionship. Most elderly people have lost touch with old friends and long for someone outside their own family to talk to. They may need to confide in someone more detached, who can listen objectively to their feelings. And the enormous satisfaction a volunteer derives from brightening up someone's day or relieving a burdened heart cannot be denied."
Rivka B. has been volunteering for a couple of months now and has someone she visits every Tuesday afternoon. "It's very important to keep the visit positive," she advises. "And it doesn't need to be long. The main thing is to go. I have seen first hand how much the senior looks forward to our visits, and that makes me feel great."
There is another component to the Melabev visiting program which consists of making a phone call before Shabbos or during the week to an elderly person. If you would like to wish someone Shabbat Shalom or Chag Same'ach or have twenty minutes once or twice a week to chat with a homebound senior, please consider contacting us.
There are Mitzvot whose fruits a person enjoys in This World but whose principal remains intact for him in the World to Come. One of them is visiting the sick. The Melabev Home Visit Committee aims to step through the doors of the homebound elderly and bring a little part of both worlds along. "Do not abandon me in my old age," says the pasuk, and the compassionate Melabev volunteers have proved that they won't.
If you are aware of a homebound senior who might enjoy visits or phone calls from a volunteer, or if you would be interested in volunteering yourself, please contact us at melabev.shemesh@gmail.com or 02-999-4258.
By Yehudit Channen – Volunteer Coordinator, Melabev Beit Shemesh
