Volunteering with Seniors

Lots of people want to help seniors, and the first thing they think of is people living in senior centers. That's great - but remember a lot of seniors that need assistance still live in their house or an apartment on their own. That's why organizations like Meals on Wheels exist, to help seniors in their own homes.

If you want to volunteer to help seniors, be prepared to:

Undergo a criminal background check. A previous conviction will not necessarily preclude you from volunteering; it will depend on the nature of the offense, the number of years since the conviction and the policies of the organization you are going to assist. You will probably need to pay for this background check yourself.
Go through an orientation or training, where you learn how to interact with seniors. You may need to learn about maintaining confidentiality and working with people with limited eyesight or hearing, limited mobility, and diminishing memory.
Be fully vaccinated. People who are elderly are at greatly increased risk of death from the flu and COVID. If you aren't fully vaccinated, please STAY AWAY from senior homes.

Don't let any bureaucracy discourage you; the elderly are a vulnerable population and must be kept safe! That's why there are such rules.

You can volunteer through a senior center, where you go onsite at the center; through a nonprofit that serves seniors in their own homes or at a center; or independently, on your own, just to be nice, but remember that DIY volunteering can incur liability risks (what will you do if you are accused of harming an elderly neighbor you have been trying to help, for instance?).

You also may need to seek funding yourself for activities you want to do; a senior center, retirement home or nonprofit probably cannot cover costs associated with starting a new program, but may be able to accept donations to fund your activities so you do not pay taxes on any funds you gather. If your project is going to cost money and you are going to ask for donations, you will need to have a written budget showing exactly what costs will be, and a relationship with a nonprofit organizations to accept those donations on your behalf so you don't have to pay taxes on those donations.

Remember that, if you are going to volunteer on the premises of any facility, you MUST have written permission from that facility to volunteer, even if your volunteering seems benign, like playing music or reading to people.

These ideas aren't cutesy and most aren't one-day, one-and-done activities, because that's not what seniors need. Remember that the need of the seniors is the priority, not your desire for a feel-good experience that isn't inconvenient for you.

Ideas for Volunteering With Seniors

Recruit, schedule and support volunteers to set up a cybercafe in a retirement home and recruit and train volunteers to help new users connect with information and their loved ones.
Set up a Wii gaming system at a retirement home and train the residents on how to use Wii for fitness and to maintain mental agility. A volunteer who will lead the residents in using the Wii is great too!
Work with a senior-serving nonprofit in your area to create a volunteer group of people that can help seniors with issues they may have smart phones, computers, wi fi networks and printers in their home. Many seniors have printers in their home but the network connection has been broken and they have no idea on how to reconnect. Or they need the text size or color contrast on their computer or smart phone adjusted. Or they need software updated, especially anti-virus software. Or they need to know how to put phones from their smartphone onto a laptop or a free online space like Flickr so that if anything happens with their phone, they still have their photos. This resource can help you better understand issues elders may have regarding networked devices.
Help seniors with grocery shopping. This can be as simple as just riding with a senior on mass transit, walking with him or her inside a grocery and reaching for items too high up or out of reach, and helping carry items home.
Recruit, schedule and support volunteers to present a series of movement classes using music and art at local senior centers for an entire season (an entire summer, for instance). Remember that seniors have limited mobility and you need to do things that don't put seniors off-balance or in any kind of physical danger.
Develop an awareness program about health issues faced by seniors (diabetes, arthritis, and, yes, HIV/AIDS, prescription drug abuse, etc.). Do 20 minute presentations on each of these issues. Have an expert there ready to answer questions by the seniors.
Write, cast, and direct a play, or scenes from a musical to present at a retirement home or senior center. Even just a 30 minute presentation will go over BIG! You could also write, cast and direct a play featuring seniors themselves.
Get a drama club to come to the center or campus and do a skit or series of scenes from plays, or to work with seniors so they can also participate as performers.
Cast and direct a play of seniors themselves, to present in a retirement home, senior center or to the community at large.
Get a local band to come perform for free. This can be a marching band, a bluegrass band, a gospel quartet, a chamber orchestra - at my grandmother's retirement home, they have an Elvis impersonator that comes every year and the residents adore him!
Arrange for local choirs or bands from schools, community groups or communities of faith to come sing
Organize a choir of seniors or a weekly sing-a-long, even for just the summer.
Create a workshop to discuss personal safety, such as how to avoid phone, mail, email or door-to-door scams.
Interview seniors to create a community display for a public space (such as your local court house), or a web site or an online video regarding something in your community's history: what the area experienced during the Great Depression, what the community experienced during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, a neighborhood that does not exist anymore, a civic movement that swept the area at one time, etc. Notify all local newspapers, local blogs & local TV about it, as well as your local Department on Aging and your state Department on Aging. Tweet about it, post about it to Facebook, etc., and get these seniors a lot of attention they will absolutely delight in - and help preserve your area's cultural heritage.
Video record or audio record seniors singing, and share it on the Internet via a blog, a Facebook page for your project, or a web site for your project. I did this with my grandmother. Recording just one or two songs a week, posting them to the Internet, and then letting all local newspapers, local blogs & local TV know about it, as well as your local Department on Aging and your state Department on Aging, as well as tweeting about it, posting about it to Facebook, etc., would get these seniors a lot of attention they will absolutely delight in - and help preserve your area's cultural heritage.
Recruit a group of friends to come to a senior residential home every day and read aloud the newspaper front page stories and obituaries to seniors, or from a religious text (the Bible, the Koran, whatever) or from a book like Chicken Soup for the Soul. The organization that runs the facility can help you identify which seniors would like this and what to read. Obituaries are VERY important to seniors - they want to know who among their friends have died.
Recruit a group of friends to escort seniors to the services of the community of faith (church, temple, mosque) they belong to. Doing this even just once a month would be HUGE to seniors.
Create a community garden for seniors living in apartments or living in houses with no yard
Go to flower shops and ask if you could take any flowers they are going to throw away to a nursing home.
Help seniors vote absentee before an election, by bringing them forms and bringing them literature about the issues or candidates (so they don't have to travel to a polling station on election day)
Help seniors volunteer themselves. Work with local NGOs to create activities seniors could do as volunteers to help others. These could be activities the seniors go elsewhere to do, or that seniors could do in their own homes, apartments or rooms. Or let seniors know about volunteering for people who sew, knit, or crochet, and for those who want to make greeting cards for ill children or to USA military personnel, and help them participate in these programs. These include:
Call your local humane society, ASPCA chapter and animal shelters, and ask if residents could make appropriate bedding for dogs and cats; if so, help seniors know about this opportunity, and then drop off what they prepare at the shelter. There are lots of suggestions online for making dog and cat beds.
Organize a day where senior residents who still cook to make appropriate food treats for dogs and cats, and then drop them off at the shelter (you need to call local humane societies, ASPCA chapters and animal shelters FIRST to make sure they will accept such treats). You can find a variety of recipes to make treats for dogs and cats online.
Work with a local dog obedience school to create a pet visitation program, where trained, screened dogs and cats are brought by their owners to the home for safe interactions with seniors. Help set up a pet therapy program where, once a week or twice a month, trained volunteers bring pre-screened dogs and cats to the center to interact with patients. You cannot simply call some people and have them bring their pets; you must look into liability insurance, training for the volunteers, a screening program for pets, etc.
Hold a spa day, where volunteers give manicures, pedicures, and facials to residents. Make sure volunteers have experience giving manicures, pedicures, and facials and know how to be particularly gentle with seniors.
You will probably be surprised at how many seniors are online: my grandmothers are in their 90s, and at their apartment complex for seniors in a small town in Kentucky, there are at least a dozen private Internet networks, as well as an Internet network that any resident can use via the apartment complex management office. If that's the case at the residential center you want to volunteer at (just take a laptop there and look at how many networks you can find, as well as talk to the office staff), then help create a private GoogleGroup for the residents and their families, with you acting as moderator of the group, reading each message before it gets shared with everyone, to ensure it's not inappropriate. Encourage residents to share what they are doing on a particular day or week, or have done - a concert they will attend, or have attended (and how they felt about it), something they saw on TV, something they would like to organize in a common room, a recipe, etc.
If you do find a lot of seniors in a community are online (see previous bullet item), let them know about virtual volunteering / how to be an online volunteer. Be sure to ask regularly who is volunteering online; a local newspaper or television station might be interested!
Help the senior center or retirement community set up a Google Calendar or a Facebook page to list all of the events the site is having for residents (blood pressure measurement, hearing aid cleaning, group exercises, religious services, book mobile arrivals, Wii gaming afternoon, group sing-a-longs, etc.). This helps residents to know what's happening, and also helps their families to know what events are going on. Be sure this online calendar is publicized in various ways: via small posters in all common spaces, via handouts to all family members, etc.
Become a volunteer with the Long Term Care Ombudsman Program, which has affiliates all over the USA. You must be at least 21 and have your own transportation. To find your local program, go to Google and type in Long Term Care Ombudsman Program and the name of your city, or your state. "The most important requirements are compassion, respect for older persons, and common sense. A positive attitude, ability to communicate effectively and available time are important. Ombudsman programs provide training and supervision in developing specific skills."

What could you do WITH residents of a senior home, with everyone out in the common room? Could you make Christmas ornaments? Could you bring items and have seniors dress up for Halloween? Or celebrate Madi Gras together? Could you make any sort of simple craft item (the Internet is packed with craft ideas for groups, for Vacation Bible School classes, for summer camps and more)? Engaging in an activity WITH seniors, not for them, is infinitely more valuable to the seniors. Please do NOT make cards for seniors - many facilities now refuse these outright, as these can actually make seniors feel even more lonely, they can contain inappropriate messaging, and these are largely performative for the volunteers.

You can also try looking through the volunteering opportunities that are posted to all the major volunteer matching web sites in the USA and Canada for activities related to seniors.

If you use my page to create a program or event, please contact me after you have finished the event or program and let me know how it turned out, what program you picked, the address of your blog, etc.

You may also want to review these resources regarding labor laws and volunteering.

If you feel mistreated as a volunteer, here is advice for volunteers on how to complain.

Here is a list of books and other resources regarding Caring for Your Elderly Family Member / Loved One

Also see

The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook available for purchase as a paperback & an ebook
This book is for both organizations new to virtual volunteering, as well as for organizations already involving online volunteers who want to improve or expand their programs.

The last chapter of the book is especially for online volunteers themselves.

This book is for both organizations new to virtual volunteering, as well as for organizations already involving online volunteers who want to improve or expand their programs. The last chapter of the book is especially for online volunteers themselves.

Finding Community Service and Volunteering for Teens

How to Find Volunteering Opportunities, a resource for adults who want to volunteer

Advice for volunteering as a group / volunteering in a group

Advice for family volunteering - volunteering by families with children and, related, advice for teaching children compassion & understanding instead of pity with regard to poverty.

Home-Based (in your own home) Volunteering Where Your Service is NOT via a Computer or the Internet (at least not to actually DO the volunteering service, but you may need to report your work online).

You are NOT too young to volunteer! Ways you can volunteer, no matter how young you are

Advice for Finding Volunteer Activities During the Holidays

Volunteering with organizations that help animals and wildlife.

Volunteering on Public Lands in the USA (national parks, national forests, state parks, wetlands, etc.)

Volunteering to Address Your Own Mental Health. There are many people that have high hopes that volunteering for a "good cause" can help them address their own mental health issues - depression, loneliness, even feelings of suicide. And, absolutely, social interactions and accomplishments that can come from volunteering can help improve a person's mental health. But volunteering activities can also can augment negative feelings. This resource is designed to help you have realistic expectations for volunteering and to avoid an experience that will make you feel worse instead of better.

Volunteering with organizations that help animals and wildlife.

How to complain about your volunteering experience.

Using Your Business Skills for Good - Volunteering Your Business Management Skills, to help people starting or running small businesses / micro enterprises, to help people building businesses in high-poverty areas, and to help people entering or re-entering the work force.

Volunteering In Pursuit of a Medical, Veterinary or Social Work degree / career

Fund Raising For a Cause or Organization

Creating or Holding a Successful Community Event or Fund Raising Event.

Volunteering To Help After Major Disasters.

How to Make a Difference Internationally/Globally/in Another Country Without Going Abroad

Donating Things Instead of Cash or Time (In-Kind Contributions)

Details on how to quickly fill a community service obligation from a court or school.

Group Volunteering for Atheist and Secular Volunteers

Ideas for Funding Your Volunteering Abroad Trip.

Details on volunteering abroad (volunteering internationally).

Ideas for Leadership Volunteering Activities
These are more than just do-it-yourself volunteering - these are ideas to create or lead a sustainable, lasting benefit to a community, recruiting others to help and to have a leadership role as a volunteer. These can also be activities for the Girl Scouts Gold Award, the Duke of Edinburgh's Award (U.K.), a mitzvah project, or even scholarship consideration.

Ideas for Creating Your Own Volunteering Activity.

Careers Working With Animals (for the benefit of animals)

Helping People Address Their Problems with Plastic
How to mobilize a community to clean up plastic bottles, plastic bags and other plastic waste from their environment, and how to reduce their use of such items in the future