Recording Home Visits

Our Local Group on a Trip

I spend a full work day at the office recording volunteer visits to seniors.

Home visits are done by volunteers, who are at their late 60th to 80 years of age, visiting the old folks who are ill, or immobile or lonely or all of the above.

Israel has a large number of older folks.  Many Jews come here to spend their last days in the Holy Land with the intent to die and get buried here.  There is an old belief that when the dead will resurrect, the graves on the Mount of Olive will open first.  The cemetery on Mount of Olive is packed and it is reserved for the presidents, prime ministers and other noted public figures.  But Old Ones continue to come. 

So while they live, many are alone and lonely and unable to truly look after themselves. Many seniors are also scattered in the Arab villages, Old Folks Homes, run-down structures, and other old dwellings.  Our volunteers visit as many as they can.  When they return to the office, they fill out a four pages report for every new visit so they can monitor the progress of many of these folks and help in practical ways.  Our old people are being looked after the best we can, trying hard not to abandon them.

The seniors who can come to the office, arrive to see the volunteer advisors who help them with bureaucratic paperwork that need to be filled in various languages. Other volunteers call lists of people checking to see if they received their pensions, if they return from hospitals, if they fill their dates of visiting families overseas….endless work.

The area our office is overseeing lies between Acco and the Lebanese border.  I visit a few people with Willie now and again, but my main job is to record the visits and the advisories that were done.  Today, I recorded a 100 such visits.  More than half of them were from Arab villages in the Galilee. 

It is an important and much needed occupation; the fact that it is done totally by volunteers, only emphasis the care that this nation is giving to its citizens.  Faithfully, our 200+ volunteers work daily at these visits, searching and locating the older folks who might be lonely and needy among us. Across Israel, there are more than 600 volunteers who make home visits as we do.  During emergency situations, the volunteers call seniors in other regions to ensure that they are safe, have food, water and shelter, and when needed they alert the social workers. 

168th Day of Praise -

Thank You God for raising an army of volunteers to help out on a daily basis those in need.

Proud to be a part of this special army,

Orith