Dear Friends of Respite Volunteers, 

There are multiple ways that you can help sustain our program, so that we may continue to serve those asking for our help. The following describe ways that you can help our program serve your family and other caregiving families. 

Annual Membership donations are accepted at any time. The cost to the program of recruiting, and training volunteers, completing the new patient/family caregiver and basic home safety assessment, providing patient and family caregiver education, keeping up to date on all the options for senior and healthcare services, so that we may provide this information to patients, matching an appropriate volunteer and supervising that volunteer, and program costs for a year is $425. If your family is receiving Respite Volunteer services, we hope you will consider asking your extended family members to make donations to cover or partially cover the $425. expense to provide services to your family for the coming year. 

Also you are now able to register your Kroger card with the Kroger Community Rewards program to donate a portion of your total purchase to Respite Volunteers. Please register online at krogercommunityrewards.com. You will need to enter our Kroger non-profit number: 82422. We have been notified that you will also need to reapply. Please check your Kroger receipt, if your purchases currently provide funding to Respite Volunteers. Please bring in your VGs Grocery receipts too, and mail or deliver the receipts to the Respite Volunteer office. VGs is also started a Rewards program. If you shop at either store, please donate to Respite Volunteers in this way. 

Please think of our office for gift giving throughout the year. The following are available year round; David Vaughn 1225 Train & TrainFest photos and prints, with cedar frames available made by Ron Raines, Comfort Cookbooks, framed art by Susan McGuire and Brian McGuire, Aromatherapy Soaps, greeting cards, collectibles, and unique greeting cards. 

As we mentioned, our Comfort Cookbook’s are on sale for $10.00, and are perfect for college students, Wedding Showers, and special birthday and anniversary gifts. The Comfort Cookbooks are available at the following locations; Serenity’s Song Gift Shoppe in Perry, Books and Beans Bookstore, Willoughby Press, Security Credit Union, and 401 Restaurant in Corunna. 

If you are a patron at a store, restaurant, physician office, or any business that supports Respite Volunteers of Shiawassee, please let their staff know you appreciate this. Please help our program look for more opportunities to promote our services, and fundraising events, and sales, so that we may continue to serve adults with healthcare impairments throughout Shiawassee County. For example Memorial Healthcare provides in kind rent for our location. 

You may know that Respite Volunteers was the recipient of a beautiful RV Motor Home, that we were able to show and actually sell in December of 2010. So please remember Respite Volunteers in estate planning, and for large donations also. We are also encouraging donations to the Gwen Osborne Endowment for Respite Volunteers of Shiawassee through the Shiawassee Community Foundation. 

Upcoming Respite Volunteer Training planned for:
Tuesday, January 17th
from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. 
at the Corunna United Methodist Church, 
200 W. McArthur St.

Please call or e-mail to register. Right now we have patients and caregiving families waiting for an available volunteer, as we are dependent upon the number of volunteers trained and available in each community. Please consider if you know someone in or near Shiawassee County who would also enjoy giving back in this way and visiting someone in their own community. Our volunteers tell us they are uplifted by the chance to serve and feel blessed to be able to help the person they are matched with. 

We would like to get more Volunteer Training locations scheduled beginning February of 2012. So if your church has not yet hosted a Respite Volunteer Training and you think this would be a possibility, please check this out and give us a call. We also need help providing the light lunches for our Volunteer Trainings. We usually hope for about 10 persons to attend the training, so several persons from a church, or a specific group at a church, or a business could plan the light meal as a donation to Respite Volunteers.