dorot - New York Nonprofit Press

14 New York Nonprofit Press www.nynp.biz June 07
AGENCY OF THE MONTH
DOROT
Generations Helping Generations
by Fred Scaglione
Thirty-one years ago, a generation of
college students at Columbia University and
Barnard College grew concerned about an
older generation of frail elderly living alone
on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. They
began collecting food and delivering meals
during the Jewish Holidays. More important
than the food were the visits with seniors who
often no longer had family or friends with
whom to share a meal. DOROT, which means
“Generations” in Hebrew, was born.
Today, those original generations have
multiplied. More than 11,000 volunteers now
enable DOROT to offer a host of services
for an estimated 18,000 seniors. Originally
focused on New York’s Upper West Side,
DOROT broadened its services to the greater
New York Metropolitan area and New Jersey
in 2000 and in Westchester in 2004. Over
the years, the organization has developed innovative,
technology-based programs to expand
its reach but the power of one-on-one
interpersonal contacts between volunteers
and seniors is still at the heart of everything
DOROT does.
“Our mission is to enhance the lives of
frail elderly and to bring generations together
for their mutual benefit,” says Vivian Fenster
Ehrlich who came to DOROT as Executive
Director 21 years ago.
What sets DOROT apart from many other
senior services organizations is its extraordinary
network of volunteers – probably the largest
local network serving the elderly anywhere in
the nation -- and its primary reliance on philanthropic
rather than government funds to accomplish
its work. DOROT is an embodiment of
the belief that communities – entire communities,
not just government -- must come together
to care for our elderly. The need is already huge
and growing rapidly.
“The aging explosion is not coming; it is
here,” says Ehrlich. “Those 85 or older are the
fastest growing segment of the population, already
1.5% of the total.” In the eight southern
counties of New York State, there are an estimated
2.2 million people over the age of 60.
“While we talk about nursing homes and long
term care, only 5% of the elderly end up staying
in a facility and then often only during the
last year of their lives. What is happening to
everyone else who is aging from 85 to 105
Where are they”
The answer, of course, is that they are at
home and often alone. “Our goal is to help
them to remain living in dignity and the comfort
of their own homes for as long as possible,”
says Ehrlich. Many seniors prefer to
age in place. For others, however, there may
be no other option. Regardless of the reason,
seniors living alone often become isolated
from friends, family and neighbors. That is
where DOROT comes in.
“Our first program, Holiday Package Delivery,
remains our signature program,” says
Ehrlich. Several times each year – the Sundays
before Rosh Hashana, Chanukah and
Passover – DOROT delivers over 500 holiday
packages to isolated seniors.
“The name doesn’t really reflect the
depth and richness of the program,” explains
Tamar Landes, LMSW, Associate Executive
Director of Community and Volunteer Relations.
“The emphasis is on the social visit.
The food is just the means to get into people’s
homes. We mobilize over 1,000 volunteers
for each holiday. They range in age from little
kids who come with their parents to people
in their 90s. It is truly an intergenerational
volunteer force.” The program starts a few
weeks in advance getting everything ready,
collecting the food and contacting seniors in
advance to ensure their participation.
DOROT’s second program, Friendly Visiting,
was a natural outgrowth of the Holiday
Spreading the Word
Package Delivery. “The original volunteers
found that they loved these visits and began
visiting older people every single week,” said
Ehrlich. Today, DOROT facilitates ongoing
Friendly Visits for a total of 300 seniors.
“We ask our Friendly Visitors to make
a year-long commitment to visit for an hour
each week,” says Sara Peller, LMSW, Associate
Executive Director of Programs for
Seniors. “On average, these relationships last
four years but many last ten years or longer.”
A key to Friendly Visiting and all of
DOROT’s programs is the support, which
volunteers receive from professional social
work staff. “Every time we send a volunteer
into a senior’s home, a social worker has been
there before hand to do an assessment,” says
Peller. “We find out what the needs of the senior
are. We also get a sense of who they are
as people and what their interest are.”
Volunteers also are screened carefully,
including in depth background and criminal
history checks. “They are going into seniors’
homes,” says Ehrlich. “We are very careful.”
The final match is determined by social
workers based on an assessment of common
interests. “They may both like art or poetry,”
says Peller.
Even after the initial introductions are
made, social workers continue to provide
regular support. “They will call every three
months to see how things are going,” says
Peller. They are also there in the event of
problems. “Volunteers are the eyes and ears
of the agency,” explains Andrew Martin, Director
of Government and Media Relations.
“If they go in and see that the refrigerator
has been empty or something generally is not
right, they can contact the social worker and
Vivien Fenster Ehrlich
we will go in and do a follow-up.”
Social workers also help to keep the
friendly visiting relationship on an even keel.
“Sometimes seniors will become so dependent
that it is overwhelming and sometimes the
volunteer gets overly involved,” says Ehrlich.
“The social worker helps them set limits.”
The success of DOROT’s program
has made the agency a leader in the field of
Friendly Visiting. As a result, the organization
is about to undertake a major initiative to
support replications of its program both nationally
and internationally. ( See below).
Over time, DOROT has developed a total
of 37 different programs, almost all of which
It takes a village to care for our seniors as well. That has been
the foundation for DOROT’s work during the past 31 years. And, it
is the message, which DOROT is committed to sharing through its
Merrin Institute. Founded in 1999 as the Generations Institute and
named by a gift from the Merrin Family in 2005, the Institute provides
training and technical assistance for organizations and professionals
in community-based outreach on behalf of the frail elderly.
“One of the reasons we developed the institute was that we
were barraged with visitors from around the world,” says Ehrlich.
“We were providing information, but not very professionally.”
Through the Institute, DOROT is undertaking a major effort
to formalize its research efforts and support replications of the
Friendly Visiting program models across the country.
About to be published is “DOROT’s Friendly Visiting Plus: A
Proven Method for Enhancing Connections between Older Adults and the Community”, a blueprint for social service agencies wishing
to establish and sustain a successful Friendly Visiting program.
DOROT’s Friendly Visiting Plus includes:
• The Guide to Friendly Visiting: A How-To Manual for Program Administrators
• The Friendly Visiting Guide for Volunteers
• The Parent’s Guide to Friendly Visiting for those interested in engaging their entire family in a visiting relationship with an older
adult.
• The Teen’s Guide to Friendly Visiting
• Portraits of Friendly Visiting is a five-minute introductory film for friendly visiting volunteers.
“We have also been doing research to develop evaluation tools and studies to demonstrate the efficacy of the program,” says Ehrlich.
Through a new website – www.familyvisiting.org – DOROT is developing a directory of family visiting programs across the
country and publishing best standards.
“We just got a grant so that we can give an award to the best friendly visiting program in the country,” says Ehrlich.

June 07 New York Nonprofit Press www.nynp.biz 15
AGENCY OF THE MONTH
involve interactions between multi-generational
volunteers and seniors.
DOROT arranges cemetery trips for seniors
to visit the graves of family and friends.
“This goes back 25 years,” says Ehrlich.
“Seniors are desperate to make these visits,”
says Landes. “Volunteers escort them to
cemeteries throughout the greater metropolitan
area. We find out where relatives are buried.
We train volunteers in how to escort seniors
physically if they have wheelchairs or walkers.
We also prepare them for the emotional aspects
of the visit. Volunteers are always surprised.
They expect it to be a very depressing experience
and they always come back completely
uplifted. It is a great day, a celebration of the
life of the person they are visiting.” DOROT’s
program uses individual car services for groups
of two or three seniors in order to reduce the logistical
problems. “A lot of our people are too
frail for busses or vans. It would be too difficult
waiting for large groups.”
A Thanksgiving Program evolved from
an early gift of 100 turkeys from a local kosher
butcher. “The board was up all night cooking
and invited the seniors in to a big dinner,”
says Ehrlich. These days, DOROT hosts 250
seniors at an annual banquet at congregation
Rodeph Shalom while volunteers deliver an
equal number of Thanksgiving dinners to seniors
who are too frail to leave home. Once
again, the focus is more on the visit than the
meal. “It is not like a volunteer just picks
up 30 meals and drops them off,” says Landes.
“They go and sit and visit. That is what
launches these ongoing relationships.”
Interestingly, DOROT does have one
meals delivery program in which a paid
staff member drops off kosher meals – frozen
meals – on a weekly basis. The program
serves over 265 people a year. “Last year we
delivered 40,000 meals,” says Ehrlich.
A similar approach has drawn a storm of
criticism from senior services agencies when
piloted by New York City’s Department for
the Aging (DFTA) in the Bronx. Ehrlich
finds the comparisons ironic – and inaccurate.
For one thing, DFTA was originally critical of
the DOROT program – which was launched
in 1983 – because of the frozen food component.
Nevertheless, DFTA has come to see
the merits of the DOROT program and continues
to fund it.
More importantly, Ehrlich stresses that
the DOROT program features intensive telephone
reassurance for the participating seniors.
“We have volunteers, usually other
seniors, who call each person on the meal
program each week to take their order,” says
Peller. “They develop strong relationships.
Our program also has a very strong social
work component. We go out to the homes to
do assessments.” With this level of support,
together with DOROT’s other programmatic
contacts, the once-weekly delivery of meals
actually promotes independence and autonomy,
allowing seniors to eat the meals they
want, when they want.
University without Walls, another initiative
dating back to the late 1980s seems
innovative even today. “We had a support
group that was meeting in Lincoln Towers
and in the winter people wouldn’t cross the
yard to come to meetings,” explains Ehrlich.
DOROT turned to technology and began running
the group via telephone conference calls.
“The group ran for three more years,” says
Ehrlich. “Based on that success, we decided
to try doing a current events and a music class
the same way. We got 36 people to register.”
Today, DOROT’s University without
Walls offers 250 different courses ranging
from poetry and literature to visual arts, computers,
health, history and political science.
“Every hour on the hour we are running
two classes simultaneously,” says Ehrlich.
“People can sign up for one or
two classes. We have had one
person sign up for 23 different
classes. Seniors from Westchester
or Staten Island can come
together by phone and share a
class from the Museum of Modern
Art. We work with every
museum in New York City.”
The University without
Walls classes are given by 125
facilitators, the majority of
whom are volunteers. Miriam
Herman, a retired college professor,
offered a recent series
of programs on “Hollywood
Legends” from her home in
Florida. A half dozen seniors
from around the metropolitan
area came on the line to discuss
the lives and movies of Katherine
Hepburn and Spencer Tracy,
two stars whom the participants
remembered from their own
youths, well before these films
were considered “old movies”.
“My daughter signed me up
for this and I am very glad she
did,” said one class member. “I
look forward to it all week.”
The program has also spawned a series
of spin-offs, including Russian University
without Walls for recent immigrants and
Caregivers’ Connection Support Groups for
people who are caring for loved ones.
University without Walls was honored
in 1999by the United Nations as one of the
twelve most innovative programs for the elderly
in the United States. In total, more than
1,000 seniors now participate in DOROT’s
three telephone-based programs.
DOROT’s other programs which serve
homebound seniors include an extensive Information
and Referral Service – (“It’s our
largest program,” says Ehrlich. “Last year
we provided 140,000 units of information.”)
– and an Escort Program that offers transportation
for medical visits and shopping.
In 1983, DOROT also began providing
critical services for seniors who do not have
a home of their own. The Homelessness Prevention
Program offers transitional shelter
for elderly who are homeless. “It was in response
to a plea by Mayor Koch,” says Ehrlich.
The program operates out of a single
room occupancy hotel on 95th Street and can
accommodate 14 people. “This is the only
transitional housing program for seniors
which operates outside of the DHS shelter
system,” says Peller.
“If you mix seniors with a younger population,
they are preyed upon,” says Martin.
“At HPP we are offering services which are
tailored to meet their specific needs. Since
we operate outside the DHS bureaucracy, we
are able do the kinds of aftercare that is effective.”
DOROT’s approach pays off. “We have
a 98% success rate in preventing the recurrence
of homelessness,” says Peller. “Over
the life of the program we have relocated
about 1,500 people to permanent housing.”
Typically, while HPP is a program,
which receives some government funding,
DOROT privately finances much of the operation.
In all, only 6% of DOROT’s finances
come through government contracts. “We are
a rare type of social service agency,” says Ehrlich.
More than half of DOROT’s $6 million
annual budget comes through individual donations.
“One of our first presidents, Jonathan
Newhouse, got us started with direct mail,”
says Ehrlich. “We do over 100,000 mailings
a year and we have over 30,000 individual donors.”
The agency also has a strong base of
70 foundation and corporate supporters, accounting
for about one-third of all revenues.
“This has given us the independence to
develop programs based on what we see as the
evolution of needs,” says Ehrlich. And, those
needs continue to grow. The average age of
DOROT’s clients is now 87, up from the mid-
70s when it was first created. One-third are
blind or visually impaired and 75% live in
poverty with income of less than $15,000.
In response, DOROT is continuing to enlist
new generations of New Yorkers to assist
their elders.
“More than 3,500 of our volunteers are
under the age of 18,” says Ehrlich. Many of
these younger volunteers come through DOR-
OT’s partnership programs with 156 different
public and private schools. “A lot of schools
have public service requirements,” says Landes.
“Kids come during school breaks. They
work in shopping programs and help us collect
and pack meals.”
Still other younger volunteers are born
into the DOROT tradition of service. “This is
a family affair. We have original volunteers
who started as singles, got married and are
now coming with their children,” says Ehrlich.
“One of the reasons we have been so successful
is that volunteers get enormous bang out
of their investment of time here. They come
because they want to give something, but they
find they get so much more in return. ”
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