ST. JOHNSBURY- The Northeast Kingdom Council On Aging is in need of volunteers. But not how you might think. The council is entering an age of need to find not a quantity of volunteers as they have 335.They are looking for volunteers that pertain to certain needs of the people they tailor to.
This can be finding people for tasks that range from snow removal to a ride to Boston.
The help is going to much needed for another reason as well. Snowbirds are what Karen Budde of the council describes them as. They are volunteers that only are around during the summer months and leave to go south during the winter. It is as literal as it sounds. But the message is clear, they are in still in need.
"Sometimes we have requests that my other volunteers dont really want to do so thats when I reach out to the community at large," says Budde. The volunteers at the council already do a pleathora of tasks that include teaching Tai Chi, balance classes, line dancing, driving meals of wheels, etc. This could very well be the underlying issue as to why Karen and her staff are having trouble.
Around this time of year the people of the community that rely on the council start planning out what their needs are. Howver, it is also aparent that some volunteers also have roadblocks of their own. "Some of my volunteers are in their 70s and 80s already so to clean off there car for example might be easy but when you add like ten cars to the list that becomes a bit more of chore for them," explains Budde.
Budde says that without volunteers in general then what they do at the council would not be possible. "If you volunteer in your community, then you are changing your community everyday, out volunteers really help us to make our mission of helping the elderly in the community.”