Submission

Propose a Solution to a Problem in Your Community

About Your Team

Choose a Problem to Solve

Social Isolation and Loneliness in the Seniors in Our Community

Solution Overview

Smiles for our seniors

Our team, smiles for our seniors, are in the early stages of developing a non-profit organization that will aim to address the problem of social isolation and loneliness in the senior citizen population. Our organization will provide for our elders in many ways that we often take for granted in our daily lives. We hope to provide transportation services, technology assistance, pet therapy, social gatherings, and most importantly time spent with elderly individuals within the community. We plan to achieve by cultivating a volunteer network and partnering with local organizations and businesses to provide our services. In doing so, we can cultivate mutually beneficial relationships with local establishments, students seeking extracurricular activities, and community members. As it states in our organization's name, we aim to provide something that is invaluable to one of our most vulnerable populations, smiles for our seniors. By implementing programs and developing a strong volunteer network we can institute initiatives that help integrate senior citizens into the community that they helped create, stay in touch with their loved ones, and improve their quality of life.

Solution Details

There are no local initiatives that our team is aware of that directly aim to improve the quality of life for senior citizens through addressing their loneliness. The lack of these programs at the current time exemplifies the need for our organization and highlights the huge impact we can make on such a large population.

In preparation for our project we conducted a literature review and found that upwards of 40% of the senior citizen population feels lonely at least some of the time. This has devastating impacts on both mental and physical health. In Modesto alone the number of individuals that are 65 years and over is 39,186. We will all age and one day and we will eventually run the risk of facing a similar future of social isolation unless we do something to change that now.

Our idea is fully developed, our vision is clear, and we are at the ground floor of implementing our plan. Over the coming months we plan to work with local schools/universities, businesses, and community organizations to develop strategic partnerships to get the organization off the ground and into action.

Developing partnerships with schools/universities, businesses, nursing facilities, assisted living centers, animal shelters, and community members to plan events, setup structured volunteer offerings for students, and setup events and transportation initiatives.

Within 12 months we hope to have a fully implemented and successful pilot program with enrollment of 1 to 3 assisted living facilities and skilled nursing facilities. This would entail an initial group of motivated volunteers and the support of local establishments (Universities, schools, businesses) that will help facilitate events, volunteer visits, transportation, etc.

Mentorship along this journey will be extraordinarily helpful in navigating the obstacles we are inevitably going to encounter. Startup funding will also be helpful to get the project off the ground and fund early events/projects to show proof-of-concept to get community buy in for further initiatives.

Absolutely. We would love any assistance and mentorship that we can get.

Thank you so much for this opportunity and we feel incredibly fortunate to continue our journey with SolveCC. (Note: Our video is too large to fit in the submission form)