[Speaker 1] (0:05 - 8:36)
Good morning, I'm Alice DeVoe. I'm the Executive Director of Seaglass Village of Marblehead, Nahant, and Swampscott. This is Bobby Cohen, a member of Seaglass Village, and Bruce Weir, a volunteer at Seaglass Village.

Seagass Village is part of the Village Movement, and we were established to set up an organization that would help neighbors age in place. The Village Movement started in Beacon Hill in 2002, and then it celebrated its 20th anniversary in February 22. Seaglass Village celebrated its first anniversary in December past year.

We're very excited that we have managed to last for the year. In Massachusetts, there were 29 villages, and Seaglass Village was the only one that was established during the COVID pandemic, so that made it a little bit more difficult for us to get going, but we managed. What we do, we help people by performing duties, tasks, anything that they need that would be able for them to be able to remain in their home, to help them live independently.

We don't do any contract work or no one is required to have a license. It's just neighbors helping neighbors and connecting people with other people because we realize that isolation is probably one of the biggest problems of the aged, and by being a member of Seaglass Village, you can connect with a lot of different people through different activities. Programs we have are social, educational, and recreational get-togethers.

We've had parties. We have beach get-togethers. We've had talks.

We've had educational programs and trips to plays or whatever, just to keep people active and vibrant. That's the most important thing with your aging population. The biggest part of Seaglass Village's requests are for driving.

Over 80% of our requests are seniors who need a ride. We're very available to take people to doctor's appointments, dentist appointments, physical therapy, hairdressers. We've taken people to yoga classes, bocce games, whatever they need to get them out of their house and get them into a social organization.

We also have household tasks that have to be done. Someone needs a light bulb changed, a mousetrap set, or a plant garden, planted in their garden. We'll be very happy to find a volunteer who will be able to help them do that.

In 2019, the town of Swampscott had a study done by the University of Mass. It was an evaluation of the needs of the town, and we found that 85% of the people in town, seniors, wanted to remain in their homes. So that was kind of the kernel that started our interest in developing a village.

17% of the population over 55 used the senior center, and we realized there were a lot more people who needed to get involved in activities and events and needed our help. And we had over 100 people join Seaglass Village in the past year, and we have over 60 volunteers. During the time, we've performed over 100 rides for people.

We've driven people to over 100 places. We've had more than 35 friendly visits, which is another thing that our volunteers do. Just go to see someone, spend time with them, maybe take them for a walk, play a game of cards.

But we also do, again, the household things that need to be done. Seaglass has, it's kind of trifled. It's volunteer services, it's social programs, and we also have vendor referrals.

Volunteer services are our biggest service to the community. Social programs are very active. We have a very active events committee who are always planning programs and events to try to get everybody involved.

We do have vendor referrals. If someone who is a member of Seaglass has used a particular vendor and they found that they had really good service, they'll call us and we'll put that person's name as a referral on our vendor list. So some people do call asking for an electrician, a chimney sweep, home health aid, whatever, so we just keep a list.

They're not fabricated or anything. It's just a referral, just a list for people to have as something to use as a source. As I said, the medical appointments are probably our biggest thing, but we do take people shopping.

Some people want to go get their groceries and they can't maybe get out of their house themselves. They need a volunteer to go in the house to help them get their coat on, get their walker, and get down the stairs. And Seaglass Village is insured for our volunteers to be able to do that.

A lot of the other ride services, like from the Council on Aging, they're not supposed to go into a home. So we kind of back up what the Council on Aging can't do. So like I said, the small repairs, the chores, even tech support.

We have a lot of people call us because they need someone to show them how to use their remote control on their new television or to set up an email. We also do some short-term support for someone who's just come home from the hospital. They may need a cat to be fed they can't bend over.

They may need a dog to be walked or someone to go get their mail. We do all of those services. The get-togethers are really fun.

We've had get-togethers on the beach. We've had s'mores parties, just talking. We've done walks.

We did have a walking group. We have excursions. We've gone on an Essex cruise a couple of times.

We've done some historical tours of the local area. And we've done some gardens, walking through some gardens. We're trying to set up some learning classes because people want to learn.

So we're setting up a few exercises, some educational programs. We've done a talk on the Olmstead District and we'll be setting up more of those type things. As I said, the vendors are just a list of people that we have referred to us from our member list.

They're just people that are recommended and someone thought they had good service so we want to put them out, put their name out for them. Seaglass Village is a membership organization for adults 50 and over. It's an organized 501c3.

It's a non-profit for the USA IRA tax code. If you want to be a member of Seaglass Village, we have a household membership, husband and wife, which is $540 for the household. If you're a single person, a single membership is $360.

As I say to someone, it's a dollar a day. And as a social member, you pay $120 as a social member. We do also have some subsidized memberships, some organizations in our area, First Church and the Humane Society of Marblehead, the Women's Humane Society have donated money so that we can even subsidize members if they don't have enough to be able to pay to join.

As I said, we opened in December 1st, a year ago, and now this is outdated. We now have over 100 members and we have over 60 volunteers. We do have a website, seaglassvillage.org and our phone number is 781-718-0401. And you can call the office at any time to get more information about Seaglass. I'd like to have Bobby, who is one of our, what we have, founding members. These were people who started before we opened for business and Bobby was one of our founding members of Seaglass Village and she's going to tell you a little about her experiences at Seaglass.

[Speaker 3] (8:36 - 10:17)
Good morning. I am very honored to be a founding member of Seaglass Village. A few years ago, I stopped driving due to some physical limitations.

It was quite difficult for me because I didn't want to depend on my children or my friends to take me to certain appointments out of the house. So about a year ago, or a year and a half ago, I should say, I happened to see an article in one of the Swampscot magazines about this organization, Seaglass Village, that was forming and one of the services that they offered was transportation. So I immediately kept calling and Alice called me back and explained to me that they were just getting started but she would be in touch with me.

So sure enough, Alice called and set up a time to come over to interview me at which point, of course, I had joined and she said to me, well, we haven't really started driving yet but would you like to do a test run? I said, I would be thrilled to be your tester. So it happened that I had a haircut appointment the following week and sure enough, Alice took me to Marblehead and brought me back.

I can't praise this organization enough. I've met some amazing, amazing volunteers and members and most importantly, it's giving me my independence back. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (10:19 - 10:32)
Now on the other side of the picture is Bruce, who's a member but is also a volunteer. And so Bruce gets a lot of requests sent to him and he'll tell you about some of the things he's done at Seaglass as a volunteer.

[Speaker 2] (10:33 - 12:48)
Thank you, Alice. What an opportunity. As we've gotten older, I've loved people my whole life.

I love the diversity of people. I love their stories that they tell. So I may be going to a home to do a volunteer item.

I was a contractor for many years so Alice tends to move over a lot of the blue colliery type stuff. I change light bulbs and take a look at mechanical things that might need to be repaired or looked at and would make a recommendation if I couldn't do it myself to hire a professional. So that's sort of a question mark for a lot of folks when they want to have something done.

But my opportunity is that I, in true volunteer mentality, I get more out of it than I possibly can than the client who is, you know, having a volunteer thing done. I recently went to change someone's light bulb and ended up sitting with them and having a cup of tea for an hour because it was just a lot of fun to be there and the gal, we had similar likes and it was fun to have that story. And I also think that, you know, at this stage of the game, during the pandemic anyway, many of us were locked in the home and so great to get out and be with people as well.

And Alice mentioned the sociable opportunities. They're fantastic, very diverse. She mentioned the beach, the beach get togethers, which were great during the pandemic, you know, because we were all distanced in our chairs and we had brought snacks and just went around the circle like you were at a campfire up in the summer camp, you know, telling different stories and then said, oh, I love that.

And then you make relationships there and then they prosper and grow from there. I can't say enough being a volunteer side, my wife and I don't have a need necessarily for things to be done, but it's fun to bounce things off people, you know, hey, if I'm watching this show on Netflix or, you know, I had this contractor come to my home and she was great, you know, all the things that you would get from being a part of a network. That's really what it is.

It's a social network. And I can't say enough the value of being a volunteer for this network and all that it gives the communities of Marblehead, Swampscott and the Hunt.

[Speaker 1] (12:49 - 13:41)
It's really great with our volunteers and our members because we've had very few situations where we couldn't provide the member with the service they requested and our volunteers are absolutely wonderful. They step up no matter what it is and when it is. We're very happy all of us to be part of Seaglass Village and I hope that now that you know a little bit about us, you want to know more, you can call the office at any, I'm at the office every day nine to one and I answer the phone even if I'm not at the office, so you can call the phone anytime and we'll tell you a little bit about Seaglass Village.

We'll send you a brochure about what we're doing and who we are and I hope if you have any questions you won't hesitate to get back to us and thank you for giving us this opportunity to tell you about Seaglass Village of Marblehead and the Hunt and Swampscott.