Jamaica Plain Chapter of MATCH-UP Interfaith Volunteers

Contact: Betsaida Gutierrez
617-277-5248

MATCH-UP en español (69k PDF; requires Adobe Reader)

The Jamaica Plain chapter of MATCH-UP Interfaith Volunteers has been serving isolated seniors and adults with disabilities in the Jamaica Plain community since 2000 in collaboration with the Sherrill House. The J.P. Chapter provides friendly visiting and medical escorting to those living in this community.

In October 2004, we began working and organizing to bring together the organizations in Jamaica Plain that are committed to assisting and serving seniors. The Jamaica Plain Elder Care Network was established with participants from JPC: Tree of Life/Arbol de Vida, Creative Alliances, Inc., and Sherrill House. The network is dedicated to bringing care providers together for information sharing and networking in order to better serve Jamaica Plain’s elders. The first project that this initial group undertook was organizing the first Jamaica Plain Elder Care Network gathering.

Two hundred organizations and individuals were invited to this first networking event which was held on February 9th at the Sherrill House and which featured guest speaker, Dr. Melvin Delgado, Professor of Social Work at Boston University. Dr. Delgado spoke about the need to do our service work and articulated very eloquently about the Art of Collaborating, which included the rewards and challenges of doing collaborations around elders and particularly with Latinos. Dr. Delgado’s speech gave us the message that we can create “opportunities to identify, engage, and plan services with communities.”

The event proved to be very successful with more than 70 people attending. Everyone who attended was motivated by Dr. Delgado’s speech and the opportunity to share their work with other organizations. In response to the event, 20 people signed up to become members of the Jamaica Plain Elder Care Network and many others who couldn’t attend the event have called and are very interested in joining as well.

If you would like more information or to join The Jamaica Plain Elder Care Network, please contact Betsaida Gutierrez at the Jamaica Plain office at 617-277-5248. In addition if you would like to become a friendly visitor in Jamaica Plain, we are in particular need of volunteers to run a group in current events and volunteers to teach Spanish or English to elderly who live in the senior developments. There are so many ways you can help an isolated elder as well such as taking them to a medical appointment or helping with short-term assistance, so please call.

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