By Burton Cole
FALMOUTH — Pendleton County’s RSVP group just finished assembling 75 cloth bags with gloves, socks, hand and foot warmers, toiletries, snacks and other goods to be distributed to the homeless population in the county.
The bags will be distributed by Turner Ridge Baptist Church, Gathering Wing, Northern Kentucky Community Action Commission and other organizations, according to Outreach Coordinator Lisa Wiggins, who leads the local RSVP group.
RSVP is the Retired Senior Volunteer Program, which operates under the umbrella of the Northern Kentucky CAC is funded by a $375,000 federal grant through AmeriCorps. NKCAC RSVP covers five counties — Grant, Owen, Gallatin, Carroll and Pendleton counties.
“I’m over Pendleton and Grant counties,” Wiggins said. “We have 376 volunteers over the five counties. Two-hundred fifty of them are in Pendleton County. We have 60 stations over five counties. Thirty of them are in Pendleton County.
“It’s a very giving community,” Wiggins said. “We have a lot of retired school teachers, nurses and social workers.”
Volunteers must be 55 or older. RSVP keeps older people active and creates a social club while giving back to the community.
“After COVID, we found that there were so many that didn’t go out of the house anymore,” Wiggins said.
RSVP not only gets older folk out of the house and socializing, it gives retirees a new purpose in life, be it creating crafts and cards for nursing home residents to helping elementary students with reading and writing.
There are other benefits, too: “If they volunteer more than four hours in a day, they get a meal voucher,” Wiggins said. There’s also monthly mileage reimbursements and a yearly rewards banquet.
The 30 stations where volunteers work range from the above-mentioned Crafters Club at the Pendleton County Senior Center, and the Foster Grandparents program at Northern and Southern Elementary schools.
Stations also include things like working with Hope Warriors cancer survivors group, working cabins and booths and the Kentucky Wool Festival, help with children’s programs at Kincaid Lake State Park, doing set-up and working with children at Kincaid Regional Theatre, volunteering at the Pendleton County Animal Shelter, Emergency Management or Public Library, assisting with meal prep and delivery for Open Hands, washing and folding clothes at New Hope Pregnancy Center, to a couple dozen other events and organizations that need the help of tutors, employment coaches, tax preparers, drivers and a host of other skills.
“We’re everywhere,” Wiggins said. The Christmas project this year was collecting goods for the homeless.
Wiggins said that she didn’t realize how much homelessness there was in Pendleton County until she began working with NKCAC four years ago.
“After COVID hit, it has gotten a lot worse,” she said.
Pendleton County doesn’t have a homeless shelter, but various groups contribute blessings such as food, clothing and showers, and RSVP volunteers bought into that project .
“I’ve never met a more caring, giving, loving group of people,” Wiggins said of the volunteers. “They’re wonderful.”
Wiggins said that anyone 55 and older wishing to join in should contact her at the Farm Bureau building, 400 Main St., by calling 859-267-2331 or emailing lwiggins@nkcac.org