Nellie's House- Guest Blog: Joyce Cavey

My path to Partners In Care started, as they say, “a long time ago” and “far, far away.” The first step on the path was when my stepmother, Nellie Davis Joswiak, got charge of me when I was 13 years old and poured enough love into me to save my life on many levels. It’s a very long story, but for now it is enough to say she became the mother I did not have until that time. My path to Partners In Care also started with “Brother Chris,” a monk who belonged to the Missionary Brothers of Charity founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta. I met Chris when I was sent to do an article about the Brothers and their work in a dangerous and impoverished section of Houston, Texas. It was the custom of the Brothers to establish their residence in the neediest area of a given city, to live with only the bare essentials like their neighbors, and to establish relationships with the neighbors so that they could better supply their needs. Because the Brothers did not want their neighbors to feel like they were victims accepting charity, they had to be creative. They decided to have “coffee mornings” in which they would invite several ladies from the neighborhood just to visit together and have simple refreshments and play games or just talk and enjoy themselves. The job of Brother Chris was to listen for any issues that needed to be remedied in the neighborhood. Subsequently, the Brothers would quietly go about seeing that the needs were met. My “Mom” Nellie had passed away by that time, but I began to think about how she would have loved such a program. She was severely disabled from arthritis and rarely had the opportunity to leave her home because I mostly lived in another state and she had few resources. She would have loved the opportunity to meet with others like herself to socialize, to brainstorm with each other to solve problems of daily living, and more.

So not too long after meeting Brother Chris I worked on a pilot program I called Nellie’s House in Houston, a program to increase the quality of life of older adults who were “invisible” to society, isolated and lonely. The pilot was in my own Nellie’s former neighborhood where ladies could travel just down the street to socialize and find opportunities to support each other.

Another long story ensued and I was not able to replicate the pilot of Nellie’s House. Part of a very happy ending to more long stories was that, as I like to say, my guardian angel dropped me down a chute and I landed in Maryland at Partners In Care at age 55 helping with transportation. Not only was I in a dream job that I loved, but I found that one of my other dreams had come true with no effort on my part: Partners In Care had decided to establish the Warm Houses program. They described it as a program “to combat social isolation and bring people together in their own neighborhoods for conversation and comraderie.” They also described it as a program “where new relationships are made and services are exchanged in a ‘virtual’ community that supports everyone for a richer, healthier life. At that point I didn’t tell anyone, but that guardian angel of mine and I did a private, gleeful tap dance together to celebrate. I couldn’t see her, but I knew my precious Nellie was dancing with us too.

Joyce Cavey, grants/outreach coordinator, Partners In Care