New Wayland Group Organizes Calls to Neighbors During Pandemic

A new group of volunteers, Neighbors4Seniors, has begun a grassroots effort to contact Wayland seniors in need of help during the COVID-19 pandemic. Wayland resident, Dave Watkins, started the group three weeks ago and, as of April 10, had recruited over 70 volunteers and reached more than 1000 senior residents.

“This initiative is founded on the simple idea that many seniors who are sheltering in place live alone and have little or no contact with other people,” said Watkins, who owns a software company that helps families care for seniors at home. He envisions Neighbors4Seniors as a street-by-street network of volunteers, regularly checking-in with their neighbors from a safe distance.

Neighborhood support groups have sprung up across the country in response to the COVID-19 crisis, offering everything from grocery and medicine delivery to childcare and translation services. In the flurry of virtual neighbor to neighbor contact, users on the neighborhood social media platform, NextDoor, have nearly doubled in recent weeks, according to CNN.

Locally, the Lincoln-Sudbury Mutual Aid Network connects volunteers with residents requesting help and oversees a town emergency relief fund. A similar initiative, the Framingham Coronavirus Community Outreach network, encourages residents to create “neighborhood pods,” groups of residents that account for needs on each block.

Neighbors4Seniors follows this model by organizing volunteers across town, making sure each street is covered. Unlike online groups, though, Neighbors4Seniors relies on residents actively reaching out to those in their neighborhood throughout the evolving health crisis.

“We have to be proactive, it’s not enough to wait for people to put their hands up and say ‘help me,’” Watkins said.

This direct approach, and the lack of coordination with the town, has generated controversy. Louise Miller, the Town Administrator, voiced concerns that the group had bypassing the town administration and was making uninvited calls.

“I had no idea that this was starting, nor did my [COVID-19] response team,” Miller said. “I had various concerns about what he was doing. Basically, cold calling, uninvited, seniors in town.”

Watkins said uninvited calls are not his intention: “When a neighbor calls and the senior expresses disinterest, they are not called again.”

Residents who have strong family support networks may opt out of the regular check-ins that Neighbors4Seniors offers.

“Our mission is to help those who don’t have families, don’t know how to use the internet, and don’t know how to use a smartphone,” Watkins said. “They are pretty isolated, and won’t be known until we actually reach out to them.”

With phone scams on the rise during the outbreak, Miller also worried about seniors’ recorded phone numbers falling into the wrong hands. Watkins maintains that only seniors with telephone numbers publicly listed on the Internet or in the MetroWest phone book are made available to the neighbor volunteer.

Before Neighbors4Seniors, many residents had already been dialing those nearby to check in. Neighbors4Seniors seeks to encourage these acts of kindness and make sure callers inform others of the town’s resources.

“Wonderful,” is how volunteer Anette Lewis described the response from fellow residents of Claypit Hill Road who have answered her calls since the crisis started. “Most people need nothing, but they’re delighted to be talking to someone,” Lewis explained.

Lewis is among the dozens of volunteers who signed up to touch base with residents on their street. Volunteers keep track of which neighbors would like to be called again. If those called express an immediate need, the volunteer refers them to Wayland’s two COVID-19 support phone lines—the health department or the general assistance hotline.

To spread awareness of the hotlines and other important resources, Watkins launched the website Wayland.info. The site also offers a feature for grocery shoppers to report what key items, e.g., butter, eggs, and toilet paper, are in stock at each store. He says this “Grocery Report,” which then appears in a spreadsheet, has its own Facebook page, with users from Acton and Concord as well as Wayland.

“The goal is to minimize the number of shopping trips needed, and therefore minimize exposure to the virus,” said Dave Bernstein, the Wayland resident who oversees the twice-daily updating of the report.

Neigbors4Seniors still lacks leaders on over 100 streets, and Watkins puts out a call for more volunteers. Readers can contact him at 508-416-6021 or davidvwatkins@gmail.com to get involved.

Neighbors4Seniors also calls for volunteers to help spur similar groups in surrounding towns. Watkins says they have begun mentoring volunteers in Sudbury on how to organize their own network.

Across the region, social isolation drags on but the spread of COVID-19 intensifies, with the first death of a Wayland resident reported last Friday. For the thousands at home, feeling helpless, reaching out to vulnerable neighbors can create both a sense of agency for the caller and replenish human connection on both sides of the phone line.