Helpings - H.E.L.P.

Measuring the help we provide.
What does a helping look like?
What's the value of a helping?
What's the cost of a helping?
Your donation will create new helpings!

How do we measure the amount of help we provide? When we directly assist an older adult or caring family member or friend, we count that as a “helping.”

As you might expect, some helpings involve more work than others. Our private consultations, telephone and walk-in assistance and public classes involve the greatest amount of work per helping. Other helpings (to visitors at our web sites, for example) leverage the initial work to create an article or publication by making it available to many people.

What does a “helping” look like? Below are composite descriptions of five typical situations and the type of helpings we provide.

Responding to Crises: Earl (age 68) suffered a stroke and was about to be discharged from the hospital to a nursing home for an indefinite stay. Like almost everyone, Elizabeth (Earl’s wife) and their three adult children were “rookies” in dealing with this situation. They had no idea how to assure good care and needed physical therapy. They had no idea how they would be able to pay for Earl’s care. At their private consultation at H.E.L.P., they learned how to obtain good care and access the available help from both Medicare and Medi-Cal. (five helpings)
Preventing Mistakes: Mary (age 84, and concerned about being able to continue living at home), was about to invest almost her entire life savings in an unsuitable annuity. The salesman made it sound like such a smart thing to do. She called our telephone “Listen, Then Help” service. By helping Mary better understand the annuity, especially the surrender charges she would have to pay to withdraw money, we helped her avoid a costly mistake. (one helping)
Learning How to Help Our Parents: Sara (age 48) lives on the East Coast and is concerned about the future of her parents, living in California. They depend on her, and she needed to know more about how to deal with issues that could arise as her Mom and Dad age. Sara visited www.help4srs.org and the information she found helped her make a strong start in her work to help her Mom and Dad. (one helping)
Creating Better Endings: Victor (age 89), after battling lung cancer for five years, was shocked to receive his terminal prognosis. He wanted to continue living at home, but didn’t want to be too much of a burden. Anita (Victor’s wife) had always been supportive. They feared that tough times were ahead. Using our Your Way guide, Victor and Anita met with their four adult children and talked things through. Victor got to live at home to the end, with the help of family, neighbors and hospice. (two helpings)
Making Better Plans: George and Teri (ages 60 and 56) wanted to plan ahead, to protect their home and other assets, to develop a workable plan for obtaining care if they needed it, and to have control over what would happen to their assets once they’d died. They were wary of the “planners” who approached them. They came to our public Senior Law School classes – and became much more confident in their ability to do the needed planning. (two helpings)

What's the Value of a Helping? We can’t put a dollar value on the help we provide when we

provide information that helps a family afford and obtain better care for a family member, or
help a person or couple create solid plans for the future, or
lessen uncertainty, confusion and stress in a crisis situation.

However, we strongly believe in the worth and significance of doing these things.

What's the Cost of a Helping? We can calculate how much it costs on average for us to provide a helping. On average last year we spent less than $2.00. This remarkably low cost per helping results from not only the careful use and leveraging of resources, but also the strong involvement and support of our volunteers. We’re very careful with the money entrusted to us, and our goal is to create as many high-quality helpings as possible with the available funds.

Your Donation Will Create New Helpings! How will we use the money you donate to H.E.L.P.? To assist older adults and caring family members and friends in dealing with aging-related legal and care challenges. In other words, to create new helpings.

You can use your credit card and donate on-line using our secure servers. With the right card, you can even earn airline miles!