Member Moment: Drive a Senior Helping Older Adults "Age in Place"
Drive a Senior (DAS) offers free transportation and other services to empower older adults to live independently and avoid social isolation, enhancing their clients' quality of life. Last year, DAS provided over 26,500 rides to homebound seniors in the Austin and Elgin communities.
"I have met amazing people through Drive a Senior. Every time I give a ride, my passenger is so grateful. But being a driver is a gift to me, not from me.” - Drive A Senior Volunteer
In addition to providing transportation, Drive a Senior offers other support services to ensure clients have the ability to live independently. Their impact often goes beyond offering a ride, providing clients the opportunity to maintain valuable relationships when driving themselves is no longer an option. As a two-year Drive a Senior client, Bobbi is the perfect example of DAS' impact. When health and vision concerns restricted Bobbi’s ability to drive, she worried she would no longer be able to serve as a main source of support for her friends and family. Through rides from Drive a Senior, she’s able to maintain reliable doctor support for her own needs, and maintain relationships with her adult granddaughter with disabilities and a close, life-long friend who is currently immobile and depends on Bobbi for support. Drive a Senior has been a Mission Capital member for five years. In those five years, we’ve had the privilege of supporting their organization in onboarding and developing board members through our Board Essentials trainings. They’ve also joined us for trainings on marketing, fundraising, and board management.
“Having new board members that are fairly new to nonprofit service, we very much appreciate the many learning opportunities Mission Capital offers. These are essential to helping us meet our mission, grow our organization, and are always tremendous networking opportunities too!” - Joseph Vasquez, Board Member, Drive a Senior
One of Drive a Senior’s major challenges is recruiting enough volunteer drivers needed to meet the demands of an ever-growing senior population. If you’re interested in becoming a driver or learning more about the needs of our community, visit the Drive a Senior website to learn more.