Can you Care and Repair?

Posted in Volunteers - Articles for Volunteers

Welcome to Catherine, our new Care and Repair Administrator!!

I just wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself!  My name is Catherine Hynes and I am the new Volunteer Administrator for the Care & Repair Westmeath Service.  This is an initiative that we have being trying to roll out in Mullingar and Athlone.

The purpose of Care and Repair is to assist older people to carry out necessary small repairs and improvements to their homes, enabling them to live independently in the community in increased comfort and safety. The Repair Service uses a pool of volunteers and handypersons to carry out small repairs and to complete minor home tasks for older people. Volunteers in effect provide a willing pair of helping hands to do a variety of small tasks that an older person may find difficult to do. The most common services required by older people are:

• Minor gardening (e.g. mowing lawns)
• Minor home decorating (e.g. interior painting)
• Installing handrails
• Tacking down carpets
• Changing plugs, fuses and light bulbs
• Installing security locks and chains
• Hanging curtains
• Installing domestic smoke alarms.

A “job” is expected to take no longer than an hour, though many small tasks may be undertaken during the same visit. The service is free of charge; the client only pays for the cost of materials used. However, donations are always welcome.

I look forward to meeting with all of you in the next few weeks!

Now that we have existing and new volunteers in place and a dedicated Volunteer Administrator– we will be launching the Service countywide very shortly.

If you are interested or if you have already applied to Volunteer with Care & Repair Westmeath and have already/are submitting your forms  – I would be most grateful if you could follow and complete this link.

If you feel you would be interested in volunteering with the Care & Repair Team – I would be grateful if you could follow and complete this linkand Bernadette will contact you and provide you with more information.

We will be having an induction evening for both existing and new Volunteers - who have completed and submitted Care & Repairs as follows:

Athlone

Monday 8 November

7 – 9pm

Business Development Centre

Ball Alley Lane

Mullingar

Wednesday 10 November

7  - 9pm

Westmeath Community Development

Clonmore Industrial Estate

We will then have an official “Launch”  for all volunteers on:

Wednesday 24 November

8pm

Venue to be confirmed

I am delighted to be volunteering with Care & Repair Westmeath and am really looking forward to meeting you all!

Regards

Catherine