Sid Spies

When Sid Spies and two fellow residents of Piedmont Gardens each suffered the loss of a spouse in 2002, they helped each other by sharing their pain. They also realized that not everyone in Garden Terrace, the skilled nursing section where their spouses had been cared for, had a friend or family member to talk with regularly or to help communicate their needs to the staff. 

Spies, a retired physician, started Caring Circle, which builds one-on-one relationships between residents in assisted living or skilled nursing and their neighbors in residential living at the Oakland continuing care retirement community. About 30 volunteers visit regularly with residents, read to them, talk with them, take them on outings and share other activities tailored to their interests. 

“They bring companionship and all kinds of ideas to help stimulate them and make the visit a meaningful one,” says Nathaniel Fripp, healthcare administrator at Piedmont Gardens. The community’s programming and nursing staff enthusiastically back the program. 

“Many long-term care residents have outlived most of their friends,” Fripp says, “and building a new friendship can be so important.” 

Caring Circle also fills a need in the volunteers. “It can be very gratifying,” Spies says. “The gentleman I’m seeing was rendered very helpless by a severe stroke six years ago. He’s glad to see me, and I’ve developed a great deal of affection for him. It’s a mutual thing between two people.” He and his friend listen to books on tape together or talk about the past.

Volunteer Newell Erwin has also developed close friendships with Caring Circle buddies she’s had over the past few years. She brought Irish music along for one, photographs of Japan for another. She’d take one out to parties, another to an ice cream parlor nearby. A former social worker, Erwin says she finds it satisfying to help someone else. 

“We’re all in this together, and that’s one thing that I can do for people who are in other stages here,” she says.
She stresses that she participates in the program because she enjoys it, but she also recognizes it has an additional benefit for the volunteers. “A lot of people in independent living don’t even want to think about skilled nursing, but if they would get used to being up there, they wouldn’t have that fear.” 

That, says Fripp, is an important reason why he and the rest of the Piedmont Gardens staff are so solidly behind Caring Circle. 

This article was featured in the November 2007 issue of ABHOW Words.
To learn more about Piedmont Gardens click here.