Three years ago, Jeff Salter, founder and CEO of Caring Senior Service, traveled 9,500 miles on his electric bike over four months to raise awareness about Grab the Bars. The initiative set out to install grab bars in up to 650 seniors’ houses across the country.
Today, Close the Gap in Senior Care, Salter’s nonprofit that seeks to identify and address underserved need among seniors, is more than halfway toward its goal. With partners Lowe’s Livable Home, TruBlue and Lowe’s Livable Home, it has completed 408 active installations and raised a total of $170,000.
Seeing the reactions of older adults who receive the grab bars is one of the most rewarding parts of the journey, Salter said.
“I feel silly sometimes talking about it because it seems like such an unimportant thing to most people, but for that person who is afraid to get into the bathtub and get clean because of that fear of falling, it’s life-changing in that sense,” Salter told McKnight’s Home Care Daily Pulse.
In the process of helping older adults receive grab bars, Salter and the project learned of a new gap: the installers themselves. It is not easy to find local installers willing to install the grab bars. Because of this, Salter’s nonprofit now is working to create a database of installers around the country.
“What you have right now is, in many places in America … it’s highly unlikely that they’ll find someone that can come out and do a professional installation — not for free or for purchase,” Salter said. “It’s a small job. It needs to be done correctly to make sure that it doesn’t just pull off the wall.”
The list may be available later this year on the Close the Gap in Senior Care website. Then Salter’s nonprofit will strive to identify and address another senior care gap.
“Once we’ve worked on [the list] then we’ll be able to kind of really start focusing on some other aspects of Close the Gap and look for some other opportunities, be it issues with medications for people, be it issues with housing issues with actual getting care individually. Looking for lots of opportunities there,” he said.
Home Sweet Home is a feature appearing Mondays in McKnight’s Home Care Daily Pulse. The story focuses on a heartwarming, entertaining or quirky happening affecting the world of home care. If you have a topic that might be worthy of the spotlight in Home Sweet Home, please email [email protected]
