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Seniors’ volunteer work boosts local economy
By Kathleen Dayton
Staff Writer
On a quiet dirt road between the Charleston International Airport and a North Charleston subdivision, the sound of hammers and the smell of paint rises from a leafy lot where a newly constructed home stands out among a number of careworn residences.
While the neighborhood is modest, there is a peacefulness here that belies the noise and congestion of nearby Rivers Avenue.
Inside the home, two men struggle to set a bifold door on its hinges. They are working for free.
Gene Lundgren, a retired educator, and Bob Leonard, a retired commercial real estate director, are known as Habitat for Humanity’s “Thursday Crew.” The team works every Thursday on Habitat for Humanity projects in Charleston, North Charleston and West Ashley.
“I’m busier than when I was working,” said Gene Lundgren, a Habitat for Humanity volunteer who moved to the Lowcountry from Kansas and has helped build Habitat homes in the area for the past six years.
$2 billion impact
A study released April 10 by Trident United Way shows that area seniors ages 65 and older pour nearly $2 billion a year into the local economy and exceed the national rate for volunteer services.
Seniors in the tri-county area had an economic impact in 2005 of $1.97 billion, according to the study, which was conducted by the Joseph P. Riley Jr. Institute for Urban Affairs and Policy Studies at the College of Charleston.
Included in the figure was $1.62 billion in household expenditures, $161 million in Medicare benefits, $119 million in Medicaid benefits and an estimated $73 million in volunteer hours.
Nationally, seniors contribute $201 billion in volunteer hours, according to the NGA Center for Best Practices.
A telephone survey of seniors on volunteerism found that while more than 40% of seniors in Berkeley and Dorchester counties volunteer their time and talents to local causes, 46% of Charleston County seniors said they work as volunteers, double the national volunteer rate of
23%.
Terry Brown, vice president for senior services for Trident United Way, said volunteerism is so strong among Lowcountry senior citizens because of specific cultural and geographic reasons.
“We have more of a culture of volunteerism in the South and in our local area,” Brown said. “We also have a lot of in-migration of people with the skills and the time to accomplish that.”
Even so, Brown is hoping for more.
“While the number is very impressive, my job is to thank the powers that be for what we have, but also to look at what we don’t have,” Brown said. “What if the volunteer percentage went up 5%, 10%, 15%? And that is just with our current population of seniors, which is about 12 to 13%. In 2030, it will be 20%. Let’s go market the seniors and let’s speed up that in-migration.”
More than 200,000 people age 50 and older will relocate to the Carolinas during the next calendar year, according to research done by the Center for Carolina Living, a Columbia-based marketing and research firm and relocation guide.
Brown’s organization commissioned the senior analysis in order to counter the notion that seniors are a drain on a community.
“We all believe that locally that’s not true, but we didn’t have any data to prove it,” Brown said. “We thought that point had to be proved.”
A vibrant part of the community
In addition to the economic impact of seniors and the volunteer hours they contribute, the study found that senior expenditures in 2005 created 21,288 jobs in the tri-county area.
Seniors contributed volunteer hours broadly, donating the most time through religious groups (39%) and social services (31.4%).
“They are one of the most vibrant parts of our community. You name it, they do it,” said Alice Krul, office manager at Christ Episcopal Church in Mount Pleasant.
Senior members of the church have cleaned up the churchyard, washed windows, taken meals to housebound parishioners, visited people in the hospital and cook twice a month at East Cooper Meals On Wheels, Krul said.
East Cooper Meals on Wheels operates on the church property and has about 220 volunteers, the majority of whom are 55 or older, said Anne Medio, the organization’s director of development.
“We would not be able to function without them,” she said.
The group operates with one full-time and three part-time employees, yet last year delivered more than 79,000 meals.
“We expect to exceed 86,000 this year,” Medio said. “That’s about 200 to 240 meals a day. There is no way East Cooper Meals On Wheels could function without these people giving their own time and using their own vehicles. The service of our volunteers greatly enriches the life of the community.”
Senior volunteers save the community money, she said. “It costs approximately the same for a year of delivered meals as it would for one day’s stay for a senior in a hospital,” Medio said.
A sense of satisfaction
While some area seniors are delivering meals, others are delivering business advice.
Manny Mello, a volunteer with SCORE, a national group originally known as the Service Core of Retired Executives, said 70% of the local chapter’s volunteers are retired.
The 56 local volunteers provide free counseling to people who are trying to start a business as well as to small business owners who are having problems. Mello, a 71-year-old former business and technology consultant, retired to Charleston from New Jersey and has been counseling nonprofits and small businesses. Mello used to earn between $1,000 and $1,500 a day for his consulting services.
Rebekah Jacob, owner of Rebecca Jacob Modern, a private art dealership and appraiser, worked for about six months with Mello before opening a business and continued to work with him for a couple of months after opening.
“We still talk,” Jacob said. “My business has really grown, and it’s expanding. It’s amazing how much he helped me.”
Mello retired in 2002 and was looking for something to do when he joined SCORE.
“SCORE seemed to make the best use of my skills,” Mello said. “I liked consulting but I didn’t want to get back into the daily grind of billing for my time. I like working with small businesses and nonprofits. It gives me a sense of satisfaction.”
Kathleen Dayton is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at kdayton@scbiznews.com.
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