LYNN — Shoveling after a New England snowstorm is not for the faint of the heart, especially for the elderly and disabled residents who live on their own.
“As a ward councilor, you always get those calls from residents who are really in need of help,” said Ward 3 Lynn City Councilor Coco Alinsug. “In a regular snowstorm, I’ll probably get around 50 to 60 messages from people.”
That’s why Alinsug created a volunteer team three years ago for his ward, where people can sign up to be on a list of helpers ready to shovel out the homes of residents in need. Sandy Corneau is in charge of maintaining and managing the program. She said most of the volunteers tend to be young teens and kids.
How it works: a resident will call Alinsug and say they are in need, and then the volunteer at the top of the program’s Excel sheet will be contacted and sent there.
“We even have regulars who we text and regularly check up on now,” Corneau added. “I have a senior down on Stephen Street, and we have been doing her property since this program started.”
Corneau said the volunteers and callers start off as strangers, but they quickly develop relationships with each other, and many of the volunteers even check up on their residents on their own time. It seems this program may have bridged a gap between the city’s youth and the elderly.
“I volunteer to pack snow for the elderly because it’s a small effort that makes a big difference,” said high school volunteer Zachstry Aziejbe. “It helps keep their walkways safe and shows that our community looks out for one another.”
Ten-year-old Lynn resident Henry Wormwood said he volunteers because “he doesn’t ever want to see old people slip and fall.”
And it seems like the idea of recruiting residents to help has caught on. Ward 2 City Councilor Obed Matul told me he took Alinsug’s idea and expanded it even further. He created somewhat of a “storm task force” with about 16 members who go out together and help clear out residents in need. Their volunteer program works a bit differently, and not all of the volunteers are kids or teens.
Matul said he and his team would reach out to residents in advance and try to plan on being there, whereas the Ward 3 volunteers would work on an on-call basis. Either way, these ward councilors are going the extra mile to make sure all of their residents are safe and secure.
The Ward 3 teams cleared out about 16 homes today, while the Ward 2 teams cleared out 28. Matul added that he was filled with so much gratitude when members of both EAC Masonry and MAC Construction showed up to help clear a few houses alongside their task force, completely free of charge.
“This program is impacting a lot of people in our city,” Matul said. “The residents will come to the window, and they will thank us so much. We truly just wanna help the residents in our ward, but when we see the smiles on the faces of all these different people helping them out, it impacts us positively. It just makes us want to continue doing it.”
