
Elinore Harwood posted a thank-you note in the Tideline last week. Writing on behalf of the Board and membership of the Cortes Island Seniors Society (CISS), she stated that Carina Verhoeve had been ‘a fine Coordinator.’ This was the first indication many Cortes residents had that the ‘Seniors Helping Seniors’ program was no longer being funded. When Cortes Currents contacted Verhoeve, she said the funding for her program had been terminated eight months ago. Now the Seniors Helping Seniors program has been restarted under the auspices of a new senior’s society.
“Seniors Helping Seniors is a wonderful initiative and program. I’m happy that it has started way back, I am happy that it has been going all these years and I am even more happy that it’s continuing. It offers essential services to seniors and if we are lucky, we will all be seniors at some point,” explained Verhoeve.
CV: “Many people have the idea that it’s for really, really old people. Yes, it’s true, but it’s also for younger people. People are welcome to join the society from age 50 on. It’s just for people in a later stage of their lives, but not necessarily when they cannot do anything anymore. We need vibrant seniors.”
“Seniors Helping Seniors started in about 2003. I think it was an idea by Elinore Harwood, Ralph Nursall and a few other people. It evolved in response to a need felt in the community to encourage more involvement of seniors in community activity and to reduce unwanted isolation. So it had two visions. One is for reducing isolation. The other is to help seniors at home – help by other seniors (hence Seniors Helping Seniors) – with things that are little for some people, but when you can’t do them anymore it’s very good to have some help. It could be some little chores in the house, but not really housekeeping; Keeping somebody company; giving a caregiver respite – just doing little things.”
“The ride shares are very important. So when a senior without his/her own transport or friends who could help and needed a ride to the hospital or to seniors luncheons – that’s part of the seniors activities program. They could get a ride.”
“The other part of the program is social .”
“There were weekly luncheons organized by a coordinator. In the beginning they went to Mansons Hall and the Cafe. Garnet was still there, making soup and sandwiches. Later it evolved into having professional cooks catering. We have had a marvellous selection of wonderful Cortes cooks preparing seniors luncheons. Part of it was in cafes and restaurants that we still had in those days, and part of it was at people’s homes. (They were always valued very much because then you get to see each other’s homes.)”
“Talks were organized. There was the seniors walking group. There was also a group who went swimming every week to Campbell River. The first coordinator, Ester Strijbos, arranged with the BC ferries that they had a pass for one car to go for free on the ferries. They went to the Campbell River swimming pool, and back. There was also aqua exercises here in the pool at the marina. Catharine Bushe was one of the people who led that.”



“When I became a coordinator in 2010, I decided to go to each program once, except chess. So I went to Aquafit. That was so strenuous. I was surprised at all those people there with more stamina than I, working out in the pool. I was the first one who went to the hot tub.”
“When I came on board in 2010, people said, ‘Oh, that’s great. You are a senior too.’”
“I was 57 at that time, and. I said, ‘well, I don’t feel like a senior.’”
“Then Cali Waddell said, ‘none of us do.’”
“I always remember that.”
“I also organized talks about osteoarthritis, about having difficulties falling asleep, or not sleeping through the night, and other health issues, about computer programs.”
“Ester set up computer tutorials, after a while I discontinued those, but then later had other ones going on, like how do you deal with spam?”
“I started organizing literary afternoons. I thought that would be great. It’s not exactly the same as storytelling, that was another initiative that I had, but I thought people might be shy. There were five or six Cortes writers who read from their own work for 10 minutes and it was just lovely. It was quite a big audience. They kept coming throughout the 12 years that I’ve organized that. It was highly valued and it’s also to prevent isolation. The aim is to get seniors out of their houses. The winters are long, the dark season is long. It was fun and after that, there was socializing with tea, coffee and goodies. You could talk to each other and to the writers. We had a lot of fun.”
CC: How did the funding come to an end?
CV: “In October I was called by the President of the Cortes Island Senior Society, with the disconcerting announcement that they found out that they actually didn’t have money for the seniors programs anymore, nor my job. They dropped it right there and then. That was a shock. No senior’s work on the island and I was suddenly unemployed.”
“But I thought, When a door closes somewhere, then a window will open somewhere else.’”
“So I just waited and I decided to go on organizing the ride shares for seniors because they’re so important, since we don’t have public transport on the island. We need the ride shares. People need to get to the clinic and to the hospital. I have a list of volunteers who are willing to drive people either on the island, or both on the island and off island.”
“There are only a few highly valued volunteers. Without them, the whole program wouldn’t work, of course. So I’m deeply grateful for the ones who were, and still are stepping up even on short notice.”
“That’s what I want to avoid, but it happens. Sometimes I had to turn myself into a pretzel to get it all done. Like when somebody needs a ride to town, to the hospital. Then I had to organize a different volunteer who would pick up the client early in the morning, at 7:00 AM or so, to take that person to the ferry. Where that person then would change cars and go into the other car and then go to town, hospital and back. And then maybe with another volunteer home again, when they live in Mansons or the south end, or Squirrel Cove in (not in Whaletown). There’s quite a bit of organizing and it is always a victory when it works.”
CC: Other than the driving, did all of the programs totally stop?
CV: “The programs that were running by themselves kept on going, but the programs that were organized by me stopped.”
“The walking group is not organized by the Senior’s Coordinator, so that kept on going. Chess kept on going. The memoir writing that I started years ago stopped for a while. It started again in the spring.”
“The luncheon stopped. For a while, nothing happened. Then Gerri Davis and George Lerchs, who had hosted seniors luncheons before, decided to offer seniors luncheons every month. Gerri is a very good cook. So once a month, she would have maybe 20 seniors in her home.”
According to the June 2023 Cortes Island Seniors Society News, this program has been put on hold until the fall. They suggest that interested seniors show up at the Community Cafe, in Mansons Hall, Wednesdays at 12:30.



CV: “I have approached the museum to host the literary afternoons for the rest of the season, and they agreed to that. We had one in March.”
CC: Tell me about the rebirth of Seniors Helping Seniors.
CV: “Ester Strijbos and I were running the ‘Better At Home Program.’”
“She was the first coordinator of Seniors Helping Seniors, and she decided there cannot be nothing for seniors on Cortes. So she applied for a few grants and she got them all. Now we have a grant from New Horizons that she managed to get under the umbrella of the Cortes Community Health Association, the CCHA for a year. That’s wonderful because the program could keep on going.
“At the last minute, the Cortes Island Senior Society decided to host the Better at Home Program for another year. Yay!”
“And Ester thought, ‘We cannot live without a senior society that organizes these programs. I will start another one.’ So she set up the Support Our Seniors Society (SOSS). They have a board, they have a bookkeeper. We have the programs. When the SOS Society is really up and running those programs will go to the new senior society and then we will carry on.
Top image credit: Soup by stu_spivack via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License)
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