Partnership Increases Visibility for Older Adults

Westerville kindness advocates are teaming up to bridge a gap in community-generated support for older adult neighbors.

Neighbor2Neighbor and Neighborhood Bridges were founded as independent entities in 2017. The former was a grassroots conversation-driven effort to inspire neighborly kindness within the community by sharing the acts of others. Supported by local government, law enforcement, education, nonprofit and business representatives, the group also organized public drop-in or pop-up events to support community engagement.

Neighborhood Bridges, a nonprofit founded by former Westerville City School District board member Rick Bannister, focuses on crowdsourcing help for students via a website that posts needs anonymously and allows donors to contribute through a process similar to online shopping. Needs are identified and posted by designated advocates—typically school counselors or teachers—who ensure resources are given to the intended recipient. Neighborhood Bridges has expanded to 57 communities in Ohio, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi.

Now Neighbor2Neighbor will utilize Neighborhood Bridges’ website to communicate the needs of older adults in the community outside the scope of existing programs and organizations.

Westerville Division of Fire Community Service Coordinator Karen Lewis is a designated volunteer area director for the initiative helping to coordinate requests. In her role with the City, Lewis assists residents needing help connecting to available services and resources.

Lewis says Neighbor2Neighbor’s existing network of community-focused individuals and service organizations is already keyed into the needs of older adults in Westerville; the more helpers the better.

“Our goal is to have advocates all over—in local churches, at Otterbein, St. Ann's, Westerville Police, etc." said Lewis. "We want all of our partners serving older adults to know that they can send us random requests any time."

To learn more about Neighbor2Neighbor, visit www.NeighborhoodBridges.org. Contact Lewis at (614) 901-6602.

From left to right is Grace Knapper, Area Director; Lyn Kiger, Advocate; Karen Lewis, Area Director; Roxanne Tilton, Advocate and Stacey Rusterholz, Advocate. Not pictured: Rick Bannister, CEO of Neighborhood Bridges.