Avenidas

Re-Inventing Aging

Volunteer Corps

Volunteer Corps

Menlo Park Women Create Phone Buddy Program for Isolated Seniors

Published in the The Almanac on July 21, 2021.

Click the image above to download the PDF.

The phone-based Friendly Voices program partnered with Avenidas to engage seniors in conversation and help them easily connect with others during the pandemic. 

To request phone calls from our Volunteer Corps, visit our services list.

According to a report cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one-third of adults age 45 and older feel lonely and nearly one-fourth of adults 65 and older are considered socially isolated or lacking social connections.

Kate Bradshaw, The Almanac

Sign Up for the Avenidas LGBTQ Seniors Initiative/​Youth Space Friendly Visitor Pen Pal Program

Join us in developing mutually beneficial relationships across the generations in the LGBTQ Community. Connect with LGBTQ seniors and youth as a Friendly Visitor Pen Pal.

Share this link with anyone that you know that may be interested in building community and/or expanding their chosen family.

Please contact Thomas Kingery or Frank Pena with any questions.

Sign Up Today

Avenidas Friendly Visitors is an ongoing Avenidas Volunteer Corps program. With physical distancing, we can’t always visit, but we can still offer support.

It’s Back to School for the Avenidas Early Literacy Program

The Avenidas Early Literacy Program (ELP) is venturing into new territory this year as we introduce our highly effective tutoring program to more new schools. For the 2019-20 school year, we will provide volunteer reading tutors in 22 schools from eight school districts and serve almost 200 children.

We were invited to provide a team of tutors for children at Forest Hill Elementary School, located in San Jose and part of the Campbell Union School District, so we trained a group of six volunteers who will help struggling students improve their reading fluency and comprehension beginning this Fall.

We will also be sending a number of ELP tutors to Henry Ford Elementary School in the Redwood City School District, another new site for our program. Because the district closed Hawes Elementary School at the end of the last school year, the community needed to send their children elsewhere. Part of the community will be going to Roosevelt School, where the ELP has provided volunteer tutors for many years, and others in the community will be attending Henry Ford School. We are happy to say that some of our Hawes tutors and teachers will be together at Ford.

Finally, we will be continuing our newly-introduced program at Beechwood School, a private, independent elementary and middle school located in the Belle Haven community in East Menlo Park. We were invited to Beechwood last summer to integrate our program’s priorities and practices into the school’s ongoing lunchtime tutoring efforts.

Currently, a team of six ELP tutors volunteer year-round at Beechwood. If you are interested in becoming a tutor, please contact Michael Kass at (650) 289-5419 or .