Advice and a little vent

That must be a very difficult volunteer position. Thank you for doing it!

That’s unfortunate. I remember once when my kids were little and we didn’t have a lot of money and needed help. It was hard to go and ask.

Thanks for volunteering and doing this work!

My mom volunteers with her church and does the same thing. She even carries a cell phone for the charity and fields calls all day. Some of the stories she tells are so sad. It does always seem like she’s putting out fires.

It’s really, really hard to ask for help. Sometimes, I will leave something until 4pm on a Friday because then I can call and make it someone else’s problem and it’s off my worry list for the weekend. Oh look, I can’t do anything now, it’ll have to wait until Monday. I can’t imagine how desperate I would be to do that with utilities though,.

Thank you for your volunteer work.

Really Red Exactly, I have a friend who, while in the process of being evicted from her apartment, spent hours everyday on the phone trying to get help for medical bills, utilities, legal aid, school fees, rent reduction, food bank order, car repair, etc. And that’s on top on working a full time minimum wage job. It seems when it rains it pours, and it’s expensive to be poor in America. I honestly don’t know how people make it through the day tbh.

Same in Florida.

Thanks. That is where I've called a few times, and every single time they respond with, "FL is out of money and can't help at this time". Even up north in NJ/NY, they would  give seniors in need a month of free electric. Down here, in the 10 years we're here, there hasn't been any program to help seniors, the needy, cancer patients, etc., with their electric bills. Even SHINE says it's impossible.

linda didn't think of Catholic Charities. I'll have to check. Thank you. My Aunt used to run the one in Staten Island. She was a nun before that. She used to get us all involved in helping there whenever we'd come to stay for a weekend (her nieces). She taught us a lot.

I'll check if we have a Christian Services Center also. Thanks! DH began getting monthly food delivered from The Volunteer Way a year ago, after his chemo. They are a faith based org., but they just deal with food. (Reminds me that I wanted to donate 8 bags of XXL Depends. I got them thru Medicare after DH'S bladder/prostate removal but he never needed them. Hope she can take them or figure out where I could drop them off.)

Thanks again.

It is awful to think of people without power particularly in extremes of temperature.

I used to work for an electricity board years ago but they never disconnected power under any circumstances , they would recalibrate the meter to cover arrears.

Things may be different now but a payment plan for arrears was always accepted without question if it came from the Citizens Advice Bureau. ( A UK advice charity )

Having a voluntary organisation / charity help with advocacy made a huge difference, whereas if a person tried to do it by themselves there was more company reluctance to accept repayment plans on their terms.
A much lower repayment rate was accepted straight away if it came from the Citizens Advice Bureau, whereas a higher repayment rate would be sought under company policy if it came from the person alone.

I used to try and find other ways of helping out too , so if someone was going through cancer , I would contact cancer support charities and offered to liaise with hospital social workers to see if there were any hardship grants or funds available.

I left the job because I got told off for being too helpful , my boss told me I was there to collect money and not be a social worker.

So I quit and I ended up working in the charity sector.

So having an advocate through a charity or organisation can have more power in negotiating lower repayment terms rather than than going it alone. At least that’s how it used to be.

We have illness in the family and years ago the company that my husband worked for had a welfare officer who put us in touch with the hardship fund run by the industry and it helped us to pay for disability equipment we could not afford at the time.

It is not easy to ask for help but when it is offered it can make a big difference.