Happy Summer!
We are excited to share the second impact report of 2024 with you! This report covers the time between April 1st and June 30th, 2024. We are grateful to you for the time and skill that you have provided to make a difference in Middle Tennessee communities. It is impressive how much can get done and how many individuals can be touched when we all come together and invest in our community. In total we had 423 individuals involved who gave a total of 4,542 hours to volunteering for one or more of GNRC programs. Thank you!
We are excited to see 108 new users in the volunteer portal. Welcome! We are looking forward to having you involved!
Now let's dive a little deeper into the specific programs and accomplishments within each.
Letter Campaign
The Letter Campaign to seniors and disabled individuals in nursing homes and assisted living facilities remains a volunteer and client favorite. 1,836 residents/clients were uplifted by 3,215 letters that you sent to them in Q2. This leads to a grand total of 97,534 letters sent through the campaign since its inception in April 2020. Thank you for your continued support! The residents continue to enjoy your kind notes, interesting stories and beautiful artistic contributions.
Friendly Visitor & Friendly Neighbor Programs
Volunteers who are involved as Friendly Visitors with GNRC's Guardianship Program continue to play a crucial part in making sure clients are well taken care of and receive much needed social connection and attention. 15 Friendly Visitors invested 125 hours to make 75 visits to 15 clients in the program. The clients enjoy your company greatly and look forward to connecting with you at each visit. You are also of instrumental value to our program staff, who receive more information about the clients physical and emotional well-being thanks to your reports.
GNRC is excited about its pilot of a Friendly Neighbor program that is designed to bring more social connection and help with small tasks to clients who would benefit from the extra attention and connection. Our first volunteer with the program spent 5 hours making visits to her client, assisting with reading mail and simply having conversations.
We also had a Friendly Neighbor Program Kick-off Meeting at Trevecca Towers, a residential facility for older adults. 5 volunteers participated and spent a total of 13.5 hours interacting with 32 residents. Volunteers provided individual cell phone instructions to residents, played bingo, and were matched for ongoing friendly visits with clients at the tower.
TennCare satisfaction surveys are a required part of a contract we have with TennCare. We were extremely fortunate to have one volunteer help us with that process and spent 12 hours conducting the surveys with clients in nursing homes.
Medicare Counseling Program
The Medicare Counseling Program at GNRC provides free and unbiased, non-commissioned help to anyone who has Medicare questions or needs assistance with a plan comparison or enrollment into a low-income assistance program. Volunteers are crucial in providing Medicare Counseling, Medicare Information and Assistance to the Middle Tennessee Community. We are proud to report that program volunteers staffed 32 outreach events and gave 17 Medicare presentations to educate the community. Trained Volunteer Medicare Counselors were able to assist 2,367 clients through one-on-one counseling sessions in Q2. In total volunteers invested 2,762 hours in helping the program.
Community and Regional Planning Department
The Community and Regional Planning Department has been busy with several large projects going on simultaneously. We are grateful for the retired Transportation planner who has given 36.75 hours of his time to assist the department with Transportation and Transit Planning for the region.
One of the projects GNRC is involved in currently is a comprehensive planning process for Rutherford County. We were lucky to have three volunteers give their time and skill to take landscape and landmark photographs for the publications that go along with the project to present the results to the community. The three volunteers spent 20 hours of their time taking the images.
The department was also involved in conducting special census verifications to make sure the data that had been collected was accurate. One volunteer spent 4 hours going door-to-door in Lebanon verifying information. The special census opens the opportunity for additional funding due to the increase in the population.
In-Office Support
We are always excited to have volunteers working alongside us in the office. In Q2 we had 10 volunteers provide 118.75 hours of their time to lend administrative support to the GNRC Office Support Team, Quality Assurance Department, Information and Assistance Department, and Legal Team. Thank you!
We hope you enjoyed reading about your impact in the last quarter as much as we did! Each time around, we are impressed by your dedication to the Middle Tennessee Community!
Thank you for helping us be better and do more!
