The JASA Friendly Visiting program offers a chance for a volunteer to make an impact in a person’s life, and in return, the volunteer can find so much more. In this specific instance, a sense of connection and a bond was built between volunteer Cindy Caplan and client Sarah, now 103 and living a fairly independent life in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Cindy works three days a week as an attorney for a law firm that represents Vanity Fair, a top-flight magazine in the Condé Nast publishing empire, but on Fridays she takes her two daughters, Noa, 8 and Kaya, 4, to visit Sarah. They have been meeting for three years, and in that time, their relationship has deepened to where Cindy says Sarah “feels like a part of the family.”
Cindy and her husband are both from Montreal and are far from family. Getting to know Sarah has filled a need for Cindy to talk to a person who cares about her. Cindy tells me when she first agreed to volunteer, she was doing it as a way of instilling some values about society to her daughter Noa, but that it has turned into an invaluable experience for her and her children. “Once you start hanging out with [Sarah], you can’t get enough of her,” says Cindy. Sarah remembers the “old” Brooklyn and has many stories to share.
Sarah seems like a 5 foot white-haired dynamo. Recently, she celebrated her 103rd birthday and was “giddy” with all the phone calls and attention from her extended family and her sons. Cindy marvels at Sarah’s engaging manner and her sense of curiosity. Sarah keenly follows baseball and current events and is conversant in both subjects. Cindy says her mind is “sharp as a tack.” She listens to Noa recite her lines for an upcoming school play and knows how she is doing in school.
Sarah’s life seems like a continual process of being engaged in the present moment, and Cindy Caplan and her two daughters are delighted to be a part of it.
Thank you, Cindy, Noa, and Kaya!
A special thank you to volunteer Richard Kagan, who contributed this story
To contact JASA Volunteer Services, please call us at 212-273-5222 or email us at volunteer@jasa.org.
