About GIV Programs
The GIV programs are Meals on Wheels, Friendly Visiting and Charlie’s Closet. In addition, GIV co-directs the Guilford Food Bank with Guilford Social Services.
The Guilford Meals on Wheels program provides a hot, nutritious meal to any Guilford resident having significant difficulty preparing themself a well-balanced meal. The meals are delivered Monday through Friday between 11 and 12:30 and frozen weekend meals are delivered on Friday. The program has no age or financial restrictions. No state or federal funds are used — it is a community-supported program based on our motto, “Neighbor Helping Neighbor”.
Friendly Visiting, begun in January 1986, is an outreach program that carefully matches volunteer visitors with people wishing a friendly visit. From the beginning of meal deliveries, the volunteer drivers reported that many clients were as hungry for companionship as food. In January, 1986, the GIV Board decided to begin an outreach and the first trained visitors began their mission in January 1987. The primary objective of Friendly Visiting is to enhance our client’s quality of life through weekly “friend to friend” connections. The program is designed as a social program — not as a respite or transportation program.
Charlie’s Closet, begun in 1998, is a medical equipment clearinghouse. CC takes donations of used medical equipment, cleans the equipment, checks it for safety and then provides the equipment to anyone requesting it for the nominal fee of $1.00.
GIV trains and coordinates volunteers for food distribution on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.
GIV’s partnership with the Town of Guilford is essential to the Meals on Wheels program. The Town provides the staff and kitchen facilities for preparing meals and contributes funding to GIV in its annual budget through the Human Services Council. Offsite storage for medical equipment has also been made available to Charlie’s Closet.
GIV is locally funded – no state or federal funds are used. Our funding sources include: Guilford Interfaith Volunteers’ Faith Communities, The Guilford Community Fund, The Town of Guilford Humans Services Council, Guilford Savings Bank, Rotarians, Donations & Memorials. In addition, the businesses and residents of Guilford are very generous in their support of GIV programs and fundraisers.
GIV is supported by various fundraisers including Guilford Rotary (Lobster Fest), Annual Patriotic Dinner, Guilford High School Concert, Christmas Tree Lighting Events, Madison Jaycees (Turkey Trot), Fish Tale (Carousel) and many other local events and individuals.
The GIV programs are supported by 150 essential, dedicated volunteers!
About the GIV Organization
Guilford Interfaith Volunteers’ mission is to promote the well-being of Guilford residents who are homebound, elderly or have special needs by providing them with food, friendship and functional medical equipment.
The motto of Guilford Interfaith Volunteers is “neighbor helping neighbor”.
GIV’s primary goal is to provide Guilford residents with nutritious food. A second goal is to reduce the feeling of isolation and loneliness in our clients. Finally, we strive to provide services that enable our clients to remain in their homes, postponing the necessity of moving to personal care facilities.
Guilford Interfaith Volunteers started from a conversation in 1985 that Dr. Elisabeth Adams had with a priest at St. George Catholic Church. One part of Dr. Adams’ practice was doing home visits. In addition to nursing care, she would provide food to her patients when needed. Dr. Adams’ conversation led to a gathering together of the faith groups of Guilford to address the need of feeding our frail, elderly residents. Out of that gathering of faith groups, GIV and the Guilford Meals on Wheels program was born with the mission “neighbor helping neighbor”. The town of Guilford provided the cook and kitchen through the Parks and Recreation Department and on July 15, 1985, 12 hot meals were delivered.
The founding faith groups were St. George Roman Catholic Church, Christ Episcopal Church, Temple Beth Tikvah, First Congregational Church, North Guilford Congregational Church, St. John’s Episcopal Church and Shoreline Unitarian Universalist Society. Today these faith communities, together with First Church of Christ Scientist, Vineyard Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints make up GIV.
The GIV board is made up of representatives from our faith communities and interested members of the Guilford Community.
The duties of GIV Board members include attending the monthly board meeting (2nd Tuesday of the month), promoting awareness of GIV programs, and participating in GIV fundraising, publicity and volunteer recognition events.