Plymouth County Senior Directory
The Plymouth County Senior Service Directory, a pilot project started by the Ecumenical Institute (EI) in 2005, has been a joint effort among EI, Iowa State University Extension, and Plymouth County leaders, businesses and volunteers.
It took hundreds of hours of volunteer labor to find the needs of seniors in Plymouth County, to compile the data, and to publish a listing of the services available, according to Karen Borchers, executive director of EI.
Borchers said Floyd Valley Hospital was instrumental in helping EI by providing a meeting place and refreshments for community meetings, and taking part in distributing the Senior Service Directory (SSD). In addition, Mike Donlin, FVH administrator, has been providing his leadership, wisdom and direction as a member of the Steering Committee, she said. Other key members of the steering committee include Elaine Doorenbos, Margie Moir, Mary Herbst and Fr. Gene Sitzmann.
The SSD will provide information to seniors and their families. Categories include: volunteer opportunities, spiritual care, professional and government organizations, health and wellness facilities and services, living assistance, housing, education, and cultural and recreational opportunities. It will also have an "other' category featuring restaurants and businesses that offer free delivery or discounts for seniors.
In addition to listing the services available in the county, the SSD will feature three types of indexes to allow people to find a service either alphabetically, by city, or by category.
The 42 pictures within the directory highlight places of interest in Plymouth County and were taken by amateur photographer Scott Bricker, owner of Bricker's Jewelry in Le Mars.
Borchers of Holstein, Iowa, said EI chose Plymouth County for the SSD because of strong support in the area and knowledge of programs there.
"We approached the community and asked how we could help," she said. "We put together a steering committee, and our goal was to focus on seniors, how to improve quality of life for them. The next thing we did was perform a comprehensive survey of the community and seniors. We asked the question, 'What would make your life better?' We partnered with ISU Extension, which gave us guidelines and helped us write the survey."
Twenty volunteers who are listed in the SSD called, visited and interviewed 82 Plymouth County residents. The volunteers asked survey respondents how they felt about life, and questioned them about their needs and concerns. From the survey, the Steering Committee derived that Plymouth County had plenty of good programs and services, but people didn't know what they were. They also discovered two segments of seniors-- the ones who needed help and those who were still helping the community, Borchers said. The Steering Committee took the information obtained from the survey and decided to create a directory for seniors. They started gathering all the information they thought would be a service to seniors.
Borchers said the directory has some unique categories of interest to seniors, including volunteer opportunities and spiritual care.
"You generally won't find listings in phone books or directories of places where seniors can help," she said. "And spiritual care is often left out of many directories, but it is an important part of seniors' lives as seniors indicated in the survey."
While some of the funding came from local businesses and community donations, most of the financing for the SSD was provided by the EI, a 501(C) 3 not-for-profit educational ministry for pastoral and spiritual caregivers. Just like St. Luke's Regional Medical Center, which has a Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) program, EI provides effective, ecumenical pastoral education to both lay and ordained caregivers. CPE helps trainees express their faith through everyday caregiving ministry to others.
Based in Cherokee, Iowa, at the Mental Health Institute, the EI has been focusing on performing their ministry in a rural community setting. EI has had more than 425 graduates in Northwest Iowa since it was founded by the Rev. Gene Sitzmann in 1968.
The SSD is just one way for the EI to get out into the community and educate the public about their mission.
"The SSD was provided as an outreach to be of service to people in the community. Our hope is that more people would also learn more about our program and become aware that we are a resource for the community," she said.
A grant from the Community Foundation of Greater Plymouth County provided funding to enable EI to get the directory updated and online.