Are you looking for a way to connect with people and something greater than yourself? We have the perfect volunteer opportunity for you that’ll not only give you a place to help others, but also find your community. On this week’s episode we’re joined by the one and only Bob Swelgin! Bob is on the board of directors of a very special volunteer organization called “People Who Care”. Join us as we discuss the amazing work “People Who Care” is doing for our Prescott neighbors and where you can sign up to join the cause!
hello hello hello fellow pickle peeps this is Dian Bro but today I don’t have the better half i have an even better half Bob Swelgen cheers to you Bob well thanks Diane thank you for joining us he is uh one of our oldest and dearest friends when we moved to Prescuit uh we’ve been friends a long time we travel together and we’re still friends that’s amazing huh it is amazing so we are very very excited because uh Bob is on the board of uh directors he is the treasurer of a very very special organization here in Prescuit called (00:40) People Who Care and so Bob has been asking us hey can I come on and talk about it and we’re like of course because it’s a very valuable um community office uh service that uh his this nonprofit it’s a it’s a nonprofit organization that uh we well was put together about 35 years ago so it’s been around quite a long time we have a good number of people who provide the service of for those people who can’t uh maybe they’re not able to see so well or not ambulatory or or they just don’t like to drive or do things right we provide a (01:16) free of charge service that will take people to non-medical doctors or hospital non-medical things so just for for the for the visit not major surgery or something like that we’re not going to carry you in and out of in and out of the doctor’s office we’re not gonna sling you over and carry you and we take we’ll take pets to vets cool which is kind of cool we have some people who uh they can’t see very well and we’ll actually have volunteers who will uh go to their home and help them read their mail uh we’ll have one or two people who (01:48) actually go and help people with the personal finances and things like that and as you know this town has a very you know a large uh demographic of 65 and older so there are a lot of folks here who maybe are by themselves maybe family isn’t nearby and so they really rely on people who care to come in and help them with some of these day-to-day things that maybe become a little challenging as you get older maybe you don’t drive anymore so people who care can come over take you to the bank like he said take you to your appointments take you to the (02:20) vet but also like he was saying too if you have a new computer right exactly right if you have a have a new computer and you want to transition from one to the other we have people who will come over and help you with that if you got a new telephone you kind of figure out how to use it um would that work for me i think I’ll just say I think we’ll send we’ll send somebody over by you soon too and and get this again free service to come over so it’s uh it’s just a group of volunteers of which I think now we have (02:48) 267 active volunteers today really uh which is pretty good and we can go over budget you got a pretty good budget well we do about a $750,000 budget so we are always looking for two things one is for volunteers and also donations so it’s kind of like you know paying forward a couple ways you know we look at people who move here maybe they’re in their 60s or very active 70 or even the 50s and they want to keep busy want to do stuff so and they want to do something worthy that makes you feel good that you’re giving (03:21) to the community exactly right you want you want to contribute to people who who have a need because at some point in time as I’m I’m here nine years um yeah I look at this and say well you some point in time that may be me who has who has a need so uh I pay forward as do a lot of other people thinking that well at some point in time the community will return the favor absolutely and uh and we try to do that we have fact we have a a couple who made money for years going around the world on providing services (03:51) to do macular degeneration which is a very big problem it’s like seven to 10 7 to 10% of people over 65 have that issue absolutely unfortunately with a with an arrangement we have with the VA a VA hospital they provide some uh equipment that we utilize in our services and if people need some equipment we can actually get it to them whether it be free or if people can afford to pay we actually would like a little bit of that but if not that’s okay mhm um and we provide that services to a good number of people every year but it’s a it’s a (04:26) worthwhile organization we take care of people in a community um again it’s all free of charge now it’s unbelievable and it’s not based on financial need okay so it’s not like um you have to be a certain you know have a certain level of income or little you know no it’s open to anybody who needs help and these uh volunteers are vetted these are not people I just pull off the street hey you want to do something for us no they have a a criminal check we we do have to do a a fingerprinting and it gets cleared through the Yavapai Sheriff’s (05:00) Office uh we do personal vetting meaning if you want to come and volunteer we require a number of references that we have people who call and actually validate the fact that yeah you are a real person you are you you are what you say you are right and we do an online review as well mhm so we really make sure that we have quality people who are really here for the right reasons um and and we’ve had zero instances by the way zero instances of of any issues um in my tenure as well as all the past that I could find 35 years wow so it’s good (05:34) folks who are volunteering a good time so what is the time requirement if you are a volunteer do you have to do a certain amount of hours a week or No as a matter of fact there is no time requirement okay uh you volunteer to become available when you are available meaning uh we have a database that people who have a need can log in and say I have a need to go to the doctor’s office next Thursday or something or even this afternoon and we do have a group of people who actually assign themselves to certain volunt to certain (06:04) we call them neighbors not people in need we call neighbors right so so certain neighbors would input a need and certain volunteers would go back and fulfill that need i like that which is kind of cool if they if they can’t do it then your your response just has to be no today i can’t make it and that’s a complete sentence is just can you do it no right fine okay we’ll send it to you next time so nobody’s putting a gun to your head or nobody’s making you sign anything that says I got to do it it’s free freewheing if you would to the (06:33) point of if I can make the time to support it I’m going to go do that and if you can’t you can’t and nobody’s ever going to call you know that about the time requirement that’s great because a lot of folks are volunteering they’re they’re retired and they’re going to see grandchildren and so it’s kind of nice you have the freedom to offer when you’re here in town and if not that’s okay they’ll pass it on to someone else to come help their neighbor and we know it’s you know the times aren’t great economically so it’s you know you got (06:59) gas fee gas prices and everything else going up we do compensate the um uh the volunteers with the 67 and a half cents per mile that the government has um as their limit you can pay somebody allotted for um for this type of question but the volunteers do not get paid but they can get compensated for mileage correct correct yeah there’s Yeah volunteers are volunteers right and so they donate their time but we do compensate them for mileage because that’s more than their time right sure so it’s um I think that’s fair yeah yeah (07:33) we get Yeah we get a lot of people who um they some of them take the check some of them just sign the check back over and make a donation which we like i love that so it’s u so again it’s just a lot of good people who um make a lot of u space in their day to help others um and again it’s kind of a you know pay it forward it’ll come back in spades later I think so what so we have not only is Bob on the board but we also have a lot of friends who are not on the board but they just simply volunteer their time so (08:01) they have a set group of people that they love and they’re like you know what I would like to work with whatever Bill and I’d like to work with Shirley so put me on with but uh Bill and Shirley and they will take them out every week you know one gentleman is is uh blind so he goes to help him get his cash so he knows you know that he can be safe and protected and Yeah that’s right we have that the one gentleman you’re talking about buddy of our named Chuck know he knows which um which bank to go to which teller at the bank to go to (08:35) when this guy goes for some reason still gets checks that help Chuck helps him get out of his mail they go to this teller and she knows what to give him as far as the the currency issues and you know the $20 bills $10 bills and he makes payments but he has a jacket he always wears and he puts so much money in each pocket to know what it’s all for and then Chuck takes them home and make sure he puts those dollars in the allowed spot so his bills get paid so it’s it’s it’s kind of cool because people have a relationship together and (09:04) so they they know exactly where to go and who to go see which teller to go to it’s like friendships that people form and also you know they just become close and they help each other out which is what community should be about right so you were saying here your 2024 stats you have 267 volunteers and they work 22,000 hours you said that’s right so in um I’ll give you I’ll give you the 10ear stats because we only we go back 10 years because the data before 10 years is 10 years okay we’ve been around 35 but prior to 10 you know (09:40) we didn’t have computers and all that kind of stuff to keep track so I just look at 10 so last 10 okay the average tenure by the way of every volunteer is over five years oh wow so once they get involved with it they stay with it and so good retention good retention so they feel good about it and they’re happy with what they’re seeing volunteering they feel they’re performing a worthwhile service so we have 550 volunteers over 10 years uh 168,000 hours neighbor served again we call the person who needs our services a (10:10) neighbor right um 2240 wow we’ve driven over 1.4 million miles in that process wow and provided uh services 72,000 times um that’s a lot and if you take it $25 an hour being an hour per service that’s about 44 and a4 million worth of um services provided free of charge wow uh now right now we have like 267 um in in 2024 we’ve driven 22,000 miles uh 321 personal paperwork helps i need that and um and 330 just wellness calls oh wow so if people just would like to get a call to make sure they’re okay sure we do that oh I love that i know (10:57) that that’s nice and you did 204 help with tech devices so I would like someone to come help me with my personal paperwork and tech devices how about taxes yeah we’ll help you with taxes soon as I get somebody to help me with my Exactly you don’t do everything in other words you do a lot you do a lot we do a lot it makes you feel good when you do it and you see people who are very very happy to receive it and like I said I think it’s great as you look at people who may move to Prescuit this is something that they they may look at and (11:28) say you know what maybe I I want to keep busy here’s something I can keep busy with um you know when when they decide it’s time to make a donation at the end of the year maybe they’ll think of us also and I think it’s great too i mean it’s just you really do form close personal relationships with these folks and you can do as much or as little as you want um but you do get close and they’re very appreciative you you get something out of it you feel great and you you feel worthy i mean a lot of folks who you know retire are like “What (11:58) am I going to do with myself?” This is something that makes you feel good exactly right we’ll have people who just come by the office we have a very nice office um in in office it’s off of Gurley okay you get past the bowling alley and go almost to the woods yeah yeah a very nice office complex uh off to the side we had uh someone donate a good Well fact it was a legacy donation we didn’t even know what was going to happen till this woman passed and it wind up we had a large amount of money wow and we also had a person who uh was (12:32) in owned the building that we are now in who decided that you know he really likes people who care and his son was utilizing people who care as he was challenged and needed some help a so we got one heck of a deal on the office we got one heck of a deal on somebody helping us with the financing and now we have offices we rent out to other people as well because it’s a pretty pretty goodized place so you’d be impressed if you came by to see the office i would like to so the other the other good thing is is that um with people who care anyway the other good thing is it’s not just locals who are uh donating you know money towards this worthy cause but there’s al that the hospital is donating a ton of money to people who care we get (13:43) a lot of um donations through grants the hospital will give us a grant u some wealthy people in the area make a point of giving us a grant every year we do other things to raise money we have a golf tournament every year out at the club of Prescott Lakes yay which is a great a great fun event cheers to that absolutely and uh we’re going to have a gayla or had have had gaylas to support the organization um auctions and things like that that’s coming up so we try to keep ourselves um active as we can we try to give more people awareness (14:16) community awareness and that’s why I appreciate you letting letting me speak about this today well he’s a good friend and he’s a good friend good person and uh you know anybody who’s out there and who really wants to get involved this is a worthy worthy cause and uh it’s just great absolutely please uh people who care just go people who care. (14:38) org we’ll give you more information on the on the organization um and you look for more and more information as you get to Prescuit um if you need some help um Diane can get you in touch with me and we will and we will uh grab you and suck you into people who care because you’re going to have a great time and feel much value to yourself and to your soul and give back to the community absolutely so for and for those of you out there who are thinking I do need some help they can call uh people who care. (15:08) org or Absolutely they can look there you go to peoplecare.org and Well when you do that that’s easier to say than phone numbers you’ll see a number there you can call that number and get Meredith will be answering the phone to support you um or just peoplecare.org and send a message via that so any neighbors out there who are thinking gosh this is something I need i really I kind of need some help um I’m here by myself this is great we’re here they’re here to help you um and I know a lot of people on the board and just friends who are volunteers good (15:39) good folks and they just want to give back to the community so we can’t speak highly enough about it and we hope that you reach out to us if you need help or if you just want to be a good volunteer this is it that’s it we’re always looking for you know volunteers looking for donations yep i like donations absolutely donations are always good busy and you’re a crazy realtor like we are there’s no doubt about that it’s hard to even go on a vacation with you guys without you guys being on the phone i know it’s terrible but uh but you know (16:10) at least we could make donations which you know what i’m going to do that now because I think it’s a great great uh great thing and um yeah we run matching programs uh at the end of the year which is just getting over today with being tax day um well we’re just just getting over earlier and um you can do that as far as you know getting matching donations prior to the tax issues you can um put things into your into your will which we encourage people to do if you’re going to pass money on to someone um please do it for us (16:43) for an organization that can help so again if you’re real busy with time make a good donation if you are have a lot of time and you want to do something worthy donate you donate your time and your services we need it and we have a great community here of folks who’ve been here maybe 20 years and maybe now they need a little extra help so this is a worthy cause and we’re happy to help you and happy to do it and I know these people i can vouch personally for them all they’re good people well thank you for the help i appreciate it you’re welcome (17:13) so again what is that people who care.org people who care.org uh please check us out see what you think um Diane and Randall I’m sure will be um communicating with me as you give them a call and say “I want to volunteer my time i want to volunteer my money i want to volunteer or I need someone to help me out. (17:32) ” Yes whether it’s you know reading or vision or driving to the get your pet to the vet uh get me to the doctor’s office absolutely and remember it is not based on financial need it’s just to help anyone who maybe needs a little extra help does not matter on your finances or your situation we’re just here to help our our older community all right well thank you Bob we’re so glad you came i appreciate it all right cheers to that cheers to people who care and you better call us all right we look forward to hearing from you take care bye bye