Kent resident starts international aid organization – hoping for volunteers to South America

Editor’s note: This updated story reflects a correction in the Web address and links for Los Abuelitos.

She saw a need and started a non-profit.

That’s the short version of the story of Jennifer Levy, the Kentwood High School graduate who will be on her way to Argentina this week, to help a group of struggling senior citizens.

Levy, 24, is the founder and president of Los Abuelitos, a new international non-profit group aimed at assisting destitute geriatric homes in South America – mainly in Argentina. Her hope is that Los Abuelitos – the Spanish term of endearment for “the grandparents” – will expand to help communities across the globe.

Los Abuelitos is Levy’s answer to what she saw on her travels as a college student in South America. On a study session in 2007 in Cordoba, Argentina, Levy wanted to immerse herself in volunteer work, in addition to donating her time as a physical therapy student in a local clinic. So officials directed her to a local nursing home called Geriatrico San Jorge.

What she saw there took her breath away.

“I went, ‘oh my gosh,'” Levy said, of the aging building that was home to 15 largely elderly patients, their caretaker cook, and the cook’s family.

“It was decrepit – it was run down.”

There was no handicapped-accessible equipment – patients who had difficulty moving had to use a single restroom with no helpful railings, or anything else that would assist in making it easy to sit down or get up from the toilet or tub.

Walkers and wheelchairs were broken or worn down. Beds were basic, with no extra equipment to aid those who had trouble moving on their own. Some patients were laying on thin, aging foam mattresses – nothing like the hospital beds you would expect in a health-care facility in the U.S.

“Some of these people were spending their whole day in bed,” Levy said, noting the discomfort that surely resulted.

Over that month, Levy got to know the residents and their cook, Irma, very well. She did what she could to help them, a lot of times just providing companionship to a group of people whom, she said, were largely passed over by the rest of Argentinian society.

“They’re very socialist, so why was this community neglected?” Levy said of Argentina, although noting she loved the vibrancy and beauty of the European-inspired culture. “Who, after a full life, having raised a family, and working for their country, wants to be locked away, watching TV?”

Levy returned back to the States when her month’s assignment was up, in love with the country of Argentina and its culture. But she kept thinking of those residents, living on so little, with Irma helping them as best she could. Also a factor was the loving relationship Levy had with her own grandparents, with whom she had lived and had assisted when her grandfather needed long-term care.

A nerve was struck.

“There was just this nagging feeling – a lump in my chest,” Levy said of Geriatrico San Jorge. “I just kept thinking of them.”

The rubber met the proverbial road when one of her friends in Cordoba wrote to tell her the lease for the senior home was up, and that the owner no longer wanted them in the building. Irma and her patients were about to be evicted.

Levy sprang into action.

She rallied the friends she had made during her study-abroad trips to South America: the volunteer-traveler friends, as well as the resident friends she had made in Cordoba.

“I said, ‘let’s try and build a house for them,'” Levy said.

But a short time later, they realized they didn’t need to build the house after all – locals were able to find Geriatrico San Jorge a new home in town. But Levy did get a request that made her think her first instinct was the right instinct.

“Just to put a roof over their heads isn’t enough,” she paraphrased, from a note sent to her by one of the locals she knew, after she had extended the invitation of a house. “Think of their long-term needs.”

So buoyed by the energy of the volunteers she’d originally contacted, Levy set out to ensure a way that the residents of Geriatrico San Jorge – and others like them – could start getting more help. Levy said she wound up starting Los Abuelitos when she realized, after looking around, that there wasn’t an aid group focused specifically on that segment of the population.

“This is a growing population,” she said of Argentina’s aging. “And they need the support just as much as other (population groups) do.”

So she began putting the pieces into place for creating her own non-profit agency.

Today, Los Abuelitos is what Levy calls with a grin, “we are very grassroots.”

The foundation officially formed March 1, and had its first board of directors meeting April 10. Levy is the board president, and her parents Robert and Cheryl Levy, are two more of the nine-member board, with Robert serving as foundation treasurer.

They are in the process of filing for their 501 C-3 tax form, enabling them to operate as a non-profit entity.

While Levy left for Cordoba, Argentina, on Friday to deliver more goods to her friends at Geriatrico San Jorge, she said Monday that she has been networking up until this time, to find support and volunteers here.

“Right now, it’s about spreading the word and raising awareness about it,” Levy said.

Key things she is seeking? The greatest, perhaps, is a distribution connection to Argentina. As import rules in Argentina are now, Levy said, moving materials through customs is complex, and individual travelers are quite limited as to how much they can bring over with them.

She’s also hoping to find volunteers. At this point, anyone who would like to help out in some way – from giving the seniors companionship to helping fix up their rooms. In time, Levy is hoping to connect with faculty members of medical schools, to enlist their help in starting health-care study-abroad projects through her organization. She also is hoping to foster, down the road, working relationships with Spanish-speaking schools, with the hope of engaging volunteers who are wanting to learn Spanish by immersion, and putting together homestays, working with local families in the Argentine cities where Los Abuelitos has projects.

You can keep up with Jennifer on her new blog on the Kent Reporter—Los Abuelitos in Argentina. Look for new posts all next week.

To learn more about Los Abuelitos, visit www.losabuelitos.org. On the Web site, you’ll find additional contact information for Levy, as well as photos and a general overview of the non-profit organization.