Helping Hands President’s Message – December 2022

Hello Villagers!!  

And Happy Holidays to One and All

It was nice to see so many of you at the November VHA New Residents’ Night. There’s another one coming up on December 13 at Colony Cottage Recreation Center, 6:30 – 8 pm. If you’re new to The Villages or would like a refresher about various community services, this succinct program has a lot of answers from many different community organizations, including information about our Helping Hands program.

In the spirit of the season, I’d like to take the opportunity to give a HUGE shout-out and thanks to all of our ~60 Helping Hands volunteers. They do a tremendous job and constantly give their time and effort, tirelessly and without compensation, frequently filling in in the last minute to cover a much-needed function. And to show just how much they are appreciated, we recently had a volunteer appreciation dinner, catered by Giovanni’s Italian Restaurant. Everyone got to socialize with each other, many meeting each other for the first time. Thank you so much. You are really making a difference and positive impact in your community and are truly neighbors helping neighbors!!

A quick update on our program.  So far this year we have had over 7000 contacts, already surpassing 2021’s 6200 contacts. If you’re in need of a temporary loan of durable medical equipment, just give us a call at 352-973-2284 and pick up your equipment in a couple days. All for free for Villages’ residents.

If you have a serviceable piece of equipment in good condition you no longer need and it’s one of the items we routinely have in our inventory, we’d be happy to accept a donation. You can see the items we have on our website (https://www.thevha.net/helping-hands/) or call to make sure. Then just drop it off during our office hours (Monday-Friday, 11 am – 1 pm) at our office in Spanish Springs; 1104 Main Street, at the back end of the breezeway/walkway next to Kilwins Ice Cream and Fudge. Please note we would appreciate you dropping off your equipment during our office hours and not leaving it on the sidewalk after hours.

Do you use Amazon? If so, you can help us and at no additional cost to you. Amazon will donate a small percentage of your order to us. All you need to do is go to https://smile.amazon.com/, navigate to and click on “Get Started.” We’re listed as “VHA Helping Hands”. It’s as easy as that.

As we always say, we’re neighbors helping neighbors!!

Al Arnold
President
VHA Helping Hands