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Veteran Volunteer Still Goes To School

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 4, 2007

TOWN 'N COUNTRY - Four days a week, Ruth Washington rises, puts on her makeup and gets dressed and goes to school.

She is 89.

'It keeps me alive. It gives me something to do,' said Washington, who has volunteered in schools in New Jersey and Florida for 16 years. 'If I didn't have this, I would vegetate. This not only is good therapy for the children, but for me.'

As a foster grandparent, Washington works 20 hours a week at Woodbridge Elementary School. The program forces her to get out of bed each morning. It makes sure she changes out of her nightgown. Otherwise, she said, she might stay at Rocky Creek Retirement Village all day.

Although the foster grandparent program started as a national effort, it was piloted in Hillsborough County in 1965. It started with 24 volunteers. Today more than 170 senior citizens volunteer as foster grandparents at 80 sites, said Nancy McWilliams, director of operations for Seniors in Service of Tampa Bay, the nonprofit organization that runs the local program.

The grandparents report to schools, shelters, Head Start centers and Boys & Girls Clubs in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Polk counties, and the need exceeds the supply.

'We're still recruiting,' McWilliams said.

Courtney Cairns Pastor

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