Episode 13 - Shawnee Volunteers
Doug Donahoo
You're listening to the Shawnee polls podcast, my name is Doug Donahue. I'm the communications director for the city of Shawnee. Thank you so much for joining us on this second episode in the month of October, and as the temperatures start to cool down, hopefully the leaves start to change color. They will start falling onto lawns, and that's where our guest this week comes into play. Elizabeth Griffith handles volunteers for the city in administering the neighbors, helping neighbors program. Let Elizabeth get into the history of that program and how she connects people looking to do some good in the city of Shawnee with members of the community who need an extra little bit of help maintaining their home. So without further ado, please, welcome to this month's episode of the Shawnee pulse podcast. Elizabeth Griffith and neighbors, helping neighbors.
You Hi Elizabeth Griffith, from the city of Shawnee. Well, we're all from the city of Shawnee. Is here. Elizabeth, how are you? I'm doing very well. How are you Doug? I'm good. You look nervous. Are you too nervous to do the interview now? No, I'm excited. Okay. You were telling me right before we started started recording, is that you want to make sure that you're doing the volunteers and the work they do for the city of Shawnee, justice, and I certainly think you're going to do that because the work they do for the city is extremely important. It is. Well, we'll delve into the work that they do and work that other folks can do here in just a little bit. But let's start with you. Elizabeth, tell us a little bit about yourself and your current position with the city of Shawnee.
Elizabeth Griffith
Okay, so my name is Elizabeth Griffith, and I am the volunteer coordinator, and I've been here 11 years.
Doug Donahoo
And what were you doing before those 11 years? Started with the city, before
Elizabeth Griffith
those 11 years, my career was in public health. It was kind of similar to what I do nowadays,
in that I worked with the community to determine needs and either build a program or bring in a program that worked to meet those needs. Talk to me a little bit about your work now as a volunteer coordinator for the city, what does that entail for you on a regular basis? Ooh, it's kind of all over the board, which is really fun for me. I would say No day is the same. No day is the same, yep. So it keeps exciting. Lots of busy work. Take it day by day. Kind of thing with public events, different departments, whatever they're hosting, if they have volunteer needs, especially for those public events, I work to recruit the volunteers to fulfill those volunteer positions. Some of them are usually temporary. It's kind of one weekend type thing, something like that. If a department has more of an ongoing need, I work to find volunteers to meet those ongoing needs. I work with both the fire department and the police department and their citizen facing programs. So like, for the police department, that's the citizen police academy for the fire department, that's the cert class that then turns into the community support team. And then I have my own programs that I work on, like adopt a spot and bluebird stewards and wildlife habitat restoration. So you have your hands all over the city working with a bunch of different departments. Yes, it's a lot of fun. I've learned a lot in my 11 years here. So at what point Could you step in and start leading the city? It's a little bit down the road, okay, but I'm working on it. Yeah, no. It's good to have goals in mind. It's good to have goals in mind. Well,
Doug Donahoo
as you said, there's a lot of different programs, but sort of one that's overarching for the entire community is called neighbors, helping neighbors. Yes, and that's when folks have heard about, I'm sure, but maybe don't know the whole story, the whole history of neighbors helping neighbors. Can you tell us a little bit about how that got started?
Elizabeth Griffith
Yeah, so when I first took my position in August of 2014 it was not that much later that I met Pastor Chris Wynn, and the city has a faith community and City Partnership. And Pastor Wynn and I would meet, and we kind of go, Okay, there's this need in the community. That's not currently being met. Some of these programs can serve some of these residents, but this sort of niche area is needed. And so we would discuss ideas, and some stuff was kind of happening. And then over the course of years, I pulled in a lot of different people, and I kind of just picked brains because more brains are better than one, and we figured out how to kind of put the parameters around this program, create the program, create the application, what the policies would be, and things like that.
Doug Donahoo
And we should say, you're basically creating this from scratch. There's no blueprint. There's not really another city that you can turn to for figuring out how it works. Shawnee and you Elizabeth Griffith, were starting this from nothing. That's
Elizabeth Griffith
correct. Yeah, we're pretty proud of it. I kind of called it my baby, and one of the things that really helped me was volunteer Philip file, and he helped me kind of figure out how we could just break this down into its most simplest form. He had volunteered for Make A Wish Foundation, and he shared with me, kind of how make a wish did it, and that's how we kind of came up with how we get the requests from the residents out to the volunteers.
Doug Donahoo
Well, we'll get through the sort of how tos and the the inner workings of neighbors, helping neighbors. But in terms of coming up with a program like this, it's pretty ambitious. There's a lot that goes into a city's responsibility when connecting residents with volunteers, and that can take some time. So if you had to kind of ballpark it, how long did it take you to go from initial concept to Okay, now we're ready to put neighbors, helping neighbors out into into the
Elizabeth Griffith
community? I would say it was pretty much two years. Yeah, we really got the program implemented in our community in 2017 and it took a while for it to grow.
Doug Donahoo
And what did those first initial days, weeks, months look like in terms of response from volunteers and from residents?
Elizabeth Griffith
I would say it was pretty good. That's where we started to shape some of our our process as well. You know, as you implement something, you revisit it, you kind of rework it to
Doug Donahoo
make sure it's no it's just, I start rolling down the hill, and whatever's in my way just gets rolled over or stops me dead in my tracks.
Elizabeth Griffith
Honestly, that's a little bit of it, too. And, yeah, all that information as you're you're piloting a program, if you will, you take in the information you're learning along the way to finesse your program, basically. And so that's a lot of what we did.
Doug Donahoo
No one's ever accused me of finesse. I think that's that's just the reality. But neighbors, helping neighbors. Let's talk a little bit about how the process works. First, finding the volunteers. And as you said, the city does have the existing faith community and City Partnership, but you've gone farther afield than just that one partnership to find
Elizabeth Griffith
folks. Yes, yeah, I would say the faith community and City Partnership helped us with some of the initial volunteers ready made groups. You know, congregation at certain faith communities wanted to step up. They wanted to get outside their four walls and things like that. That was the initial part. And then just through promoting this as a volunteer opportunity, I would say the volunteers found us. So the ones that really had that interest in well, I want to lend a hand to my neighbor. Our motto is matching the needs of some with the willing hands of others. And so I think that appealed to some people, I do see a lot of retired engineers. They want to keep using their skills and their training, and they can come in and help out. We have people who just absolutely love being busy or being outdoors that jump in. I have some work for them then, yeah, well, we all do, but that's why we have parameters and criteria to qualify for the program? Yeah, yeah. So a demonstrated need is necessary. But yeah, I would say that that's really kind of how it's been. I just think we get some of the most generous hearts that step up to help with this program.
Doug Donahoo
And as you said, it's faith communities. You've had some retirees. What about on the the the other end of the demographic? Have you seen a pretty wide range of ages that have, that have stepped up?
Elizabeth Griffith
Oh yes, yeah, we see younger ones. There was a time where Mill Valley High School football team, the coach said, we're going to use this project as a way to give back to the community. We're going to volunteer for this one. That was really neat. But I see a lot of Yeah, range. I see families getting involved, parents who want to teach their kids what community service is about. A lot of people, what I hear from them is we just want to give back. We love Shawnee. We want to give back to the community. And I think that's just so lovely. That is
Doug Donahoo
lovely indeed. Well, let's talk about the community and giving back to folks. How then are do folks become eligible to receive volunteer support?
Elizabeth Griffith
Okay, so to receive the services of neighbors, helping neighbors, in particular, you must own and occupy your home in Shawnee, Kansas, be age 65 or older, or have a disability and have a household income of 61,250 or less, and we raise that income limit up from 50,000 in 2024 because we don't want people to be stuck in really tough situations. Do I purchase my medication this month, or do I paint the exterior of my house?
Doug Donahoo
So those are the basic qualifications, and then from there, it's just dependent upon what in particular they might need assistance.
Elizabeth Griffith
Exactly, yep. So there's a one page application. We really tried to just reduce the barriers. We want people to utilize this service. So it's a one page application, and then the back side is a waiver. And yeah, they can ask us for a number of things. And so when I speak with that resident after receiving their application, I could maybe say, say they want gutter cleaning, and I might ask them, Well, how tall you know are your gutters? And if it's at the one story level, we'll accept it. If it's higher than that, we won't accept it. It's very much a balancing act between safety of the volunteers and the needs of the residents. So there's some limitations that we do have. Well,
Doug Donahoo
there are always going to be limitations. As you said, gutters are a perfect example that once you. Get above that, that one story, that one story in height, that becomes a much more perilous position to be in to do any type of cleaning. So it absolutely makes sense. How, then, in your office, do you connect the volunteers with with the residents?
Elizabeth Griffith
So the way it works is, I receive those requests. Request, a list of requests goes out weekly on email, okay? And on the email, there's kind of some basic information. So say you, for example, Doug, you needed some help changing out a light light bulb. Let's say that's indoors, inside your house. You needed some plants trimmed outside your house, and you needed a step built. Maybe your step was broken on your front porch. So then you would make those requests, because we currently have kind of a bundling technique that we use
Doug Donahoo
when you say an email goes out every single week. Do you have a rough average of how many requests or how many residents are going out in one email.
Elizabeth Griffith
It really varies. It really varies. Like this week, we don't have any new requests going out, but some existing ones. Oh, existing ones, yes. So we're still looking for it. Yeah, couple matches on things. But yeah, that's kind of how it works. That email goes out weekly, a brief description of what the resident is requesting their cross streets, because we consider these people vulnerable. So we don't wish to share all the information immediately based giving folks a general geographic area, yep, and then the number of volunteers that are requested. So if the request is indoors, we have two people that need to go together, two volunteers that need to go together at the same time, and then from there, I just kind of gage it, depending upon what the request is, and if it's outdoors, outdoors, I just talk with a resident a lot to try to get kind of a scope of work from them, and kind of make that guess from there
Doug Donahoo
is there, is there a minimum number of volunteers who have to go if
Elizabeth Griffith
it's strictly outdoor work? No, okay, there's no minimum. And the
Doug Donahoo
example that you were giving the idea of having a task, perhaps inside and a couple of tasks on the exterior of a home. How often are you able to bundle those together so their work is provided by one or two volunteers at the same time, rather than having it stretch out over two to three different single or groups of volunteers.
Elizabeth Griffith
Well, we just kind of more recently made that bundling change, and it was just so that, you know, if somebody, a resident, made a request, and it was maybe 15 minutes of work, but it was a 20 minute drive for a volunteer, they're spending 40 minutes to and from that house for 15 minutes of work. So it was more so an encouragement of the resident to look around what else might you need, or could this wait until you have another request? Things like that. Because the program did grow a lot. Grew a lot in the number of people that utilize it. So we kind of had to once again revisit what was going on and kind of restructure a few things. When
Doug Donahoo
did that growth in terms of requests start to really happen for you? Last year 2024
Elizabeth Griffith
was when we made those changes. So we just, you know, took the time to look over our application and make a few other changes as well. And that's when we increase the income the income limit. Well,
Doug Donahoo
obviously it's, it's great to work with individuals, individuals, individual volunteers can make a lot of difference one on one. The next step, though, is to work with those larger groups. How does that work, to bring in groups of volunteers, whether they be scouts or Shawnee based companies or larger church groups. How do you how do you work with the larger groups to provide more opportunity to make a difference?
Elizabeth Griffith
It again, it's just dependent upon the request. For example, there was a codes violation, and the homeowner had peeling paint, and it was going to, once it kind of got into the work, it was going to require scraping that paint off first and then painting. And so that one, we actually worked with the Chamber of Commerce and their community impact day, and we got a group of volunteers, initially to go out there. And then once they went out, everybody keeps me posted. So once they went out, they're like, this is a lot of work. We're hand scraping this and whatnot. So that need goes back out, it might change what I write in the email. And then that need goes back out. And with this one example in particular, then actually my co workers, so Shawnee Public Works stepped up, and they power washed and they scraped, and they couldn't get it all done either. So then the next group that came in was actually community life, church, and they came in and finished the scraping and then painted it. And the coolest part about this story, Doug was not only did that clear the violation for this homeowner, but she started hearing from her neighbors, Wow, your house looks really great. Her sense of pride in her home and the upkeep of it was restored. She wasn't feeling like she was a burden to her neighbors anymore. And it was just one of those beautiful stories
Doug Donahoo
well, and a beautiful story also in that it was an example of neighbors stepping up time after time after time in three separate instances. Is to see a job to completion and really make sure that it was done to an incredibly high standard. Obviously, yeah, I
Elizabeth Griffith
would say. So, yeah. And so the neat thing is, is, if there is a material or an item needed to make that repair, we do ask that the homeowner purchase that. And so in this case, with this example of the lady in her paint, she was thinking she couldn't purchase it, so I referred her to Johnson County household hazardous waste, which sells very large buckets. I think it's five gallons of buckets at a lower cost. Five gallon buckets. Yeah, yes, five gallon buckets of paint at a lower cost. And so a big part of this program, as well, is connecting people to other resources in the community. So if their request is too large for neighbors, helping neighbors, we're not going to take it on. I'm going to refer them to the other organizations that are already doing that, like Rebuilding Together Shawnee.
Doug Donahoo
But also you're, you're, you're meeting folks that beyond just household maintenance tasks may need assistance in other ways too. Are you also connecting them with additional services, whether it be Johnson County Health Department, other nonprofits? How does that part work?
Elizabeth Griffith
Absolutely, because I feel if somebody calls in and they ask for help, sometimes that's really difficult for many of us to do, and I don't want the phone call to end with them feeling left empty handed. So if I know of something, and this is where my training in public health comes in, to act as a resource. So I act as a resource for them, to connect them to what else might be existing in the city and the county, in the metro.
Doug Donahoo
Well, we talked about some of the recent work that that volunteers have completed, but kind of going through the list, what are the typical services that neighbors, helping neighbors is really outfitted or able to provide on a fairly regular basis?
Elizabeth Griffith
Yeah, I would say that is yard work. Yard work throughout the year. That's probably the biggest number of requests in the spring and summer, mowing is our greatest need, and we had a lot of great success this past mowing season, if you will. We had businesses donating for the first time, and that was fantastic. One yard for them. May not have felt like too much, but it was huge for the people in this program. And then in the wintertime, snow removal is our largest need, and coming up, you know, since the leaves are going to fall off the trees here soon, I will start receiving a lot of requests for raking, and I know I have, like, some people who they're the scout leaders, and they're watching the emails, and they're waiting for some of those first raking requests to come up. So it's kind of neat, because it's the needs of maybe that scout group as well. Maybe they need to earn a badge, but they're going to get matched with somebody who has a need to have those leaves raked out of their yard.
Doug Donahoo
Do you see the volunteers ebb and flow depending upon perhaps, what their strength is, what their abilities are, and what the needs are of neighbors helping neighbors over the course of the year,
Elizabeth Griffith
I do, yes, I have certain people that will step up for certain requests. Sometimes I have multiple people step up for the same request, and I just let them know of volunteers, and I just let them know you're second If anything falls through, you know, kind of thing. But yeah, we have our people that have the small scale electrical experience, small scale plumbing experience, actually, my right hand man, BILL CARMODY, with the program, his grandson, was in school for plumbing, and he started kind of getting engaged in that way. So a lot of times, if it's a plumbing request, they'll take that on. Yeah, I see a number of different Let me see. With the safe seniors program through our fire department, I have two volunteers that have regularly stepped up to help those residents install those assistive devices in their home, and it's just kind of neat to see what the patterns are.
Doug Donahoo
Well, let's talk a little bit about the interior of the home, because we talked about the exterior, whether it's lawn care, mowing, raking, shoveling in the winter time. What about on the interior? We kind of talked about the idea of changing out light bulbs. But then you mentioned minor electrical work, plumbing, safety devices. What all do we cover inside the house?
Elizabeth Griffith
That's kind of hard to narrow down, so sometimes it's just a discussion between the resident and I, but I would say, like, more recently, we had, you know, a ceiling fan was taken down and reinstalled. Drawers get fixed burner got fixed, cabinets, flipping a mattress, changing the light bulbs, as we said, so,
Doug Donahoo
a lot of it could honestly be described as the sort of day to day conveniences of life that you or I might take for granted. But for somebody who's living by themselves on an extremely fixed income can mean a world of difference, exactly.
Elizabeth Griffith
And just this week, we had a lady who she just needed her outdoor hose disconnected from one reel and reattached to another. That was no skin off the gentleman's back who went to do it, but it was a barrier to her. So it's
Doug Donahoo
just, and that's really what we're talking about. We're talking about barriers, no matter how great or how small you. Ultimately, to one person, make a tremendous difference.
Elizabeth Griffith
Absolutely. And I try to remind the volunteers of that. It may seem small to you, but it is huge to them. You're clearing a path for them.
Doug Donahoo
You talked a little bit about the painting of the of the exterior of the resident's home, and it was taking care of a code violation. Obviously, cities like Shawnee have codes that have to do with the exterior look and feel of homes. A lot of it is how a house is painted or the length of the lawn cleared sidewalks during the winter time. Tell me a little bit about the importance of connecting seniors or folks facing a disability who might need that assistance when it comes to, as you said, clearing a code violation.
Elizabeth Griffith
Sure. So I've actually worked with several of the different city departments, anybody that's public facing, forward facing, to make sure they're aware of this program our codes enforcement officers, if they kind of can sort of see with their eyes, well, maybe this person is eligible, or if that resident themselves is aware that this program can assist them, then they'll pass that application along. Or the resident applies on their own, and I do work with the codes enforcement department on that to say, hey, this person's applied, they said they were in violation of a code. Then everybody knows, okay, they're working on addressing it. Because again, we give a resident, well, we give volunteers up to four weeks to step up for a request, and if they don't, then we pull it from the list and a referral is provided. So working with the codes enforcement department, yeah, they just basically, I can very directly speak with that codes enforcement officer what all needs to be cleared or taken care of to clear them from this violation. And we're all kind of, it becomes then that like city staff or the wrap around support for that resident. So if they really do have that demonstrated need, that's when we can all step up to take care of it. And there's been some, some cases where, you know, the codes enforcement officer who wrote the violation comes back to work at the end of their shift, they change their shirt, they're out of their city vehicle, they go back and they take care of it themselves. So I'm very impressed with the co workers stepping up from so many departments, police department, fire department, codes across the game. I even had it Help, help. So, I mean, it's been, it's been just something that I'm
Doug Donahoo
communications director, feel real powerful, right? Well, you
Elizabeth Griffith
can join me. Yeah, you want to go rake some
Doug Donahoo
leaves. I would love to, let's talk a little bit about a recent success story that you were, I think about to touch on the idea of a codes enforcement officer going out looking at a potential violation, and then, rather than it just being I'm firing off a letter to the resident, how do we get this problem fixed? And talk me through a recent example of that?
Elizabeth Griffith
This was such a neat story. So a gentleman was in violation of several codes, one of them being that the exterior walls of his house were caving
Doug Donahoo
in. And that's not just a code violation, that's a safety issue. Oh
Elizabeth Griffith
yes, yes, yes. And there were other things. I mean, there was a shed on the property that was just dilapidated and whatnot. So this codes enforcement officer never gave up on this gentleman, and the gentleman had applied to neighbors helping neighbors, but it was so much beyond what we typically see for neighbors helping neighbors, that like we were taking pieces of it to try to take on and what ended up happening was our codes enforcement officer met with the fire department. The fire department kind of trickled it down to some of their staff, and one staff member in particular. Can I mention names? Jim Giffin stepped up, and he's volunteered with the program before, so he's familiar with it. And he stepped up, and he got other firefighters from the same shift, but different stations to join him, and they went on site to the property, and the night before they were scheduled to go out and demolish this shed, a tree fell on it.
Doug Donahoo
So well, yeah. But they had say, well, our services are no
Elizabeth Griffith
longer needed. Well, actually was more work for them, because then they had to chop up. That's why nobody asked me to do. That's right, yeah. But I mean, some of these firefighters, you know, they have side businesses, so, like a skid steer was brought on site tremendously helped to speed that process. Along other staff donated their tidy town vouchers. That shed was gone. It was all taken to the landfill. Trees were trimmed while they were on site. The gutters were cleaned out. And then on another weekend, these walls were knocked down and rebuilt. And then from there, and this is just so cool to me, but from there, then we've matched this gentleman with other services. So Rebuilding Together, Shawnee has done a tremendous job of going into the home and really working with him, like, oh goodness, there's actually a lot here. Where do we need to prioritize? How do we help you the most? And it was like peeling back the layers of the onion once they got into the home. I mean, this gentleman was, he didn't have a whole lot, if I can. I mean. He was essentially living inside a tent in his home. This house potentially should have been condemned, but he is in so much better shape now because of everybody's generosity, their skill, their time, and he is now moving on to the next level, where he has through the CDBG Community Development Block Grant, Shawnee funds some of the Johnson County minor home repair program. So he is now going to receive assistance from Johnson County minor Home Repair
Doug Donahoo
and we should also add as a part of the process, one of our building inspectors came in to make sure that everything was built up to code and that the repair work that was done was up to satisfactory
Elizabeth Griffith
levels. Absolutely, it was a huge effort across departments, and it just makes me so proud of my co workers, quite frankly.
Doug Donahoo
Well, that's obviously a huge success story any others of whatever scale or scope, because we talked about that one being a huge one. It involved basically rebuilding a home. But as we were just talking about a moment ago, no matter the scale or the size, to an outside audience, the individual sees every victory as enormous.
Elizabeth Griffith
Yeah, I believe so. And I mean, it's not just again, what we can see being solved. I mean, the volunteers are helping to provide them relief. They're helping to reduce anxiety. A lot of these people, they're they're mostly home. So when they look outside every day and they see that same problem over and over, and it's not getting fixed, it grows enormous. And so for somebody who's like, Sure, I can come chop that tree branch down, you know, kind of thing safely from the ground with both feet on the floor, that's our policy on the ground, then they take care of that tree
Doug Donahoo
breed. I juggle the axes before I do that, you
Elizabeth Griffith
can but, but I wouldn't really, unless you're a good juggler, not, that's the, that's the that's the ironic. Yeah, you'd be putting on a show. Yes, I
Doug Donahoo
think that's the important thing, service and a show.
Elizabeth Griffith
Yes, yes, but there have been some really neat connections too. There's been some stories where it truly is an actual neighbor helping a neighbor. And then sometimes you know, if the volunteer is willing, they might share their phone number and say, Call me when you want. You know. And people have made relationships out of volunteering together or getting connected from as a volunteer to a resident.
Doug Donahoo
Have you? Have you seen? I'm sure you've seen concrete examples of that where the resident
Elizabeth Griffith
and we don't deal with concrete.
Doug Donahoo
That's good to know. I had a list, but that's that's nice to know, no concrete. No concrete at all. But you have seen foundational stories of the volunteer and the resident becoming becoming friends, developing that relationship, that thing can then, one be assistive, but two, be of emotional support.
Elizabeth Griffith
Yes. I mean, if they choose to, that is never an expectation of the volunteers in this program. But again, you just get kind generous hearts that step up to help with this program. And so naturally that will happen. Yeah, and the end goal is, and this is what Pastor Wynn and I would talk about early on. The end goal is that we've created a culture in Shawnee where neighbors just help neighbors, and it's not a program that's facilitating that. It's just the culture.
Doug Donahoo
Well, let's talk a little bit about another upcoming season. We talked about the need to rake leaves in the fall time. But then December, January, February are quickly approaching, and we have under the neighbors helping neighbor banner. We have another branded, branded activity called Snow squad.
Elizabeth Griffith
I think you just sold it.
Doug Donahoo
I think I did too. It sounds snow squad. Yeah, tell me a little bit about snow squad, though. I think the name is fairly self explanatory.
Elizabeth Griffith
So snow squad kind of just it was a beast of its own. So the way I worked the program, it almost just made more sense to create it like a sub program under neighbors, helping neighbors. So for those who do wonders and who doesn't love branding, right? Yeah, so, but for those who do want to receive the snow services, they still have to apply through neighbors helping neighbors and qualify, which is actually kind of cool, because then hey, for the rest of the year, if you need anything around
Doug Donahoo
the other nine months. Yeah, it's not snowing, hopefully, yeah? But
Elizabeth Griffith
because I have to match the volunteers to the residents ahead of the snow season, so that when we meet that three inches of snow, that's our trigger, I dispatch the volunteers to go to their match residents. It would have been impossible for me to do this as needed. Yeah? I mean, and just ask people, okay, we, you know, it's just, so I had to work the program this way.
Doug Donahoo
So how does the cut off work? When do folks need to get their name on the list to make sure they're qualified and eligible for shoveling? When the three inches of snow might
Elizabeth Griffith
fall? It's, it's, it's kind of a balancing act. There really is no. Cut off if we have the volunteers, then they can make a request after the third snow storm, if, if that even occurs, you know, so it's ongoing, but typically, for those that are already involved with the neighbors, helping neighbors program, when they tell me, in the spring, I want snow services, I ask them to call me back when it's a need. But we're starting now to keep track of who all's been requesting services of snow squad. And we're starting the recruitment as well of the volunteers to go and shovel or snow blow driveway, sidewalks, sometimes porches, of these residents and match them. So what I ask usually is, I'll match you up to two. If you're willing to just give me one, I'll take it, you know, but ideally up to two, and we try to keep it. I ask a lot of times for cross streets of the volunteers, so that I'm matching them to a pretty close location. Again, safety is a priority. We want to take care of everybody. So our policies with that are, again, we ask them to go out once we've reached three inches of snow, hopefully it stops snowing and the roads have been cleared, then we asked them to go out a lot of times. These are the volunteers for this. Are people who are working full time jobs, taking care of their own residents, taking care of their neighbors, taking care of their parents. So I then communicate to the residents a lot of patience on their part to allow that person to come out there and get that taken care
Doug Donahoo
of. So the not the expectation, but the way the system works, is we're expecting folks are going to rightly need to get out of their own driveway first, let the streets be cleared by the fantastic public works and snowplow teams here in the city of Shawnee, and within 24 to 48 hours after the snow stops falling, be able to get over to the residents homes.
Elizabeth Griffith
Yes, yeah. And the cool part is sometimes Mother Nature takes care of it for us, which is awesome, but that's usually what we're going to see if it's under three inches. That's kind of why we have our policy. And then sometimes, too a neighbor just steps up and clears the driveway of somebody in their neighborhood, and they saw, Oh, snow still on their driveway. I'm going to go help out. But yes, it is very necessary for those residents. They could be receiving meals at home. They could need to get out to doctor's appointments or fill medications. They could have home health visits, different things like that. So it is very necessary,
Doug Donahoo
obviously, last winter, especially when the calendar turned we saw not just a lot of snowfall, but we saw very cold temperatures, like you said, sometimes mother nature helps out. That was certainly not the case that we saw this past winter. What was the need like in January and February of this year with snow squad,
Elizabeth Griffith
it it was tremendous, and that was difficult. I do let the volunteers know. I mean, you are volunteering for this, so if you do not feel safe, you do not have to go. We're not here to push anybody into anything. So people always know, oh, this is within my abilities. I have the right equipment. You know, whatever the case may be, but yeah, this past winter season was really tricky. It was very busy, and we had to throw out a call for help to our faith community and City Partnership to help us try to expand the need of the the awareness that they need, yes for the response to help the residents. And we did get a few that were able to help out through that. It's, again, it's ideal to go ahead and match people prior to the snow season, because I'll tell the residents, you know, we're working on this, and until they get a letter from me in the mail, they can't count on a volunteer coming.
Doug Donahoo
Well, let's, let's talk a little bit about that. Then, how do folks sign up to volunteer. Oh,
Elizabeth Griffith
it's very simple. It is, yeah, so city of shawnee.org, backslash volunteer is how you get to the volunteer opportunities page, and you'll see a tile for neighbors, helping neighbors. If you click on that, you will see the volunteer application and you will see the resident application. So they're both hosted there, or simply email me, call me. I'll send it to you. I do work a lot off email. So Griffith, yeah,
Doug Donahoo
at City of shawnee.org, we'll pause that one out there. Yeah. Also be in the description of this episode, so you have that handy for you if you're interested in volunteering. And as you said, it's also on that same page where folks can sign up for
Elizabeth Griffith
assistance. Yep, and we're going to be working, kind of trying some unique techniques. This came from, again, another the volunteers that helped me with this program, my right hand man, Bill, he has, kind of his family gets involved as like a think tank. And he had suggested that we try to target the gyms that a lot of times people there working on their fitness, their cardio, and maybe, you know, just as an added layer of fitness, in the winter time, when you don't really get outside as much, they might want to take on this role and really do their heart a good, solid deed, right?
Doug Donahoo
Well, once you get done with cardio, shoveling a driveway, I think most people just want to take a nap. So you're right, it's a heck of a workout.
Elizabeth Griffith
Yeah, there's some people out there, like, I just taken layers off. I was sweating. Yeah.
Doug Donahoo
Elizabeth Griffith, thank you so much for being here, volunteer coordinator for the city of Shawnee, as she says, trying to build a culture where neighbors help neighbors in the community. Elizabeth, I think you're well on your way. Congratulations to you. Thank you for all your hard work, and especially thank you to all the hard work of all of all of the volunteers. And if anybody's interested, once again, in volunteering in any capacity with the city, where do they go?
Elizabeth Griffith
Volunteer? City of shawnee.org, backslash volunteer. Or feel free to email me. Give me a little bit of time. I am part time, but e Griffith, so E as in Elizabeth, G, R, i, f, f, as in Frank i, t, h, at City of shawnee.org and I would love to hear from you and see what we have that meets your interest that we have as a need city of shawnee.org/volunteer
Doug Donahoo
Elizabeth Griffith, once again joining us here on this episode of the Shawnee pulse. You
I think the important thing about neighbors, helping neighbors is it really shows Shawnee as a community coming together to help folks. And that is really great. And Elizabeth Griffith, much appreciation to her for coming on to this episode of the Shawnee pulse and letting us know all about the neighbors, helping neighbors program and speaking of community, what else makes Shawnee a community? Is all the events. Kate Kincaid, is here. Kate, good to see ya. Good to see you, too. Doug. Kate, as you know you come here, you tell us about the events, and people want to know about the events. So what events do we have? It's getting cooler, the days are getting shorter. But that doesn't mean the events are turning down or becoming
Kate Kinkaid
less. No, they never, never, never. In Shawnee, we keep them going all year long. There we go. So what do we have coming up for folks? All right, so it is spooky season, you know? So we've got all our Halloween events
Doug Donahoo
coming up. I hide in under the covers. Our
Kate Kinkaid
mo Well, our most popular one. We'll see if you make it out there. There can be some pretty scary costumes. But we have historical hauntings coming up this year. It's on a Friday. It's at Shawnee town, 1929 it's a long standing tradition here in Shawnee, it is Friday October 24 from 630 to 8:30pm, there'll be hay rides, trick or treating, crafts activities, bounce houses. It's a good time for the whole family, music, food trucks, all of all, everything you need,
Doug Donahoo
an event, anything that you could want, including candy for the children, because they're not going to get enough candy this holiday season. It's candy season. It really is. It really is. We should just change the name. I think. There we go. There we go.
Kate Kinkaid
But if you're not into the spooky, scary Halloween stuff, yes, do have looking ahead on Saturday, October 25 we have our holiday treasures. It is time to start holiday shopping. So shop local. We'll have over 65 local vendors at the Shawnee Civic Center from 9am to 4pm free admission. Come shop. There's peanut brittle, there's there's artwork, there's jewelry, all kinds of great things to shop and get your holiday shopping out of the way early.
Doug Donahoo
Well, speaking of holiday shopping, we would be remiss if we didn't mention Chris Kendall market at moonlight market. It is the last city hall parking lot event of the season in the evening. We are actually moving it up a week this year to Thursday, November 13. It will be from four to 7pm under the lights of City Hall. But lots of vendors, lots of food, lots of drinks, lots of festivities around the holiday season for the kiddos and the mayor's Christmas tree lighting will happen at approximately 645 that evening to really kick off the holiday season in downtown Shawnee. We should also mention that the beneficiary of the mayor's Christmas tree fund this year is Shawnee Community Services and at the last city council meeting on Monday, October 13, the City Council approved the use of some of the remain of actually all of the city's remaining coronavirus fund money from the federal government to support Shawnee community services to build an enclosure over their storage area behind the main building. So your donations to the mayor's Christmas tree fund this year will have an opportunity to help build that storage area for Shawnee Community Services and allow them to reach more people, help more people, assist more folks in need here in Shawnee Johnson County and the entire Kansas City Metro Area. One other note from the City Council meeting on October 13, Kate, if you ordered a new car, how soon would you hope to have it? Hopefully pretty quickly. Would you take five years?
Kate Kinkaid
Feels like a stretch. Feels like a stretch. Might not want that car
Doug Donahoo
anymore. Well, when it's a new ladder truck for the fire department, you do put in the five years because it's a fully custom job, the Shawnee Fire Department will get a new hook and ladder truck, or tiller, as they call it, to replace ladder 71 in approximately 2030, council voted approved the purchase not to exceed $2.5 million so a new hook and ladder truck will be coming to Shawnee in approximately five. Years. So mark your calendars. Very exciting. Very exciting. What else can folks mark their calendars for that's a little bit coming up, a little bit
Kate Kinkaid
quicker. Yeah, sooner. We have two great events. On November 15. We have the repair cafe at Shawneetown, 1929 during the day, it's gonna be 9am to 1pm that's a free event. What it is is I'll have people there to help you repair items, whether it's to sew clothing or fix a computer, fix lamps, things like that that maybe would end up in the landfill. Instead, we'll have technicians there to help you repair those. It's free. You can bring one one item per category. You can find more information on the website, and you can bring up to three items total that evening. If you want to come back to Shawnee town, we have our award winning veterans lantern tour. It's from five to 9pm It's $10 if you register in advance. It's an immersive exhibit throughout the grounds of Shawnee town, $12 if you pay at the door. There are actual time slots that you sign up for. So I recommend getting in there early and grabbing those spots
Doug Donahoo
now. It's a really interesting exhibit that Charlie patler and Hannah Howard talked about on the Shawnee town 1929 episode of the Shawnee post. So take a listen to that. It's really tells the story about a community in transition between the after effects of the Great War and the coming of World War Two, not to mention the Great Depression that the community is unaware of. But as Kate said, it's an immersive exhibit. It is really an incredible experience to have and to hear the real word words from the people who were alive during that time period.
Kate Kinkaid
Yeah, it really, it really is that living history that Shawnee town, 1929, exhibits so well, it's a great opportunity to see that and to see it from a different light. It's not just your downtown parties and grocery store and things like that. It's really getting into the history there with the veterans in our community.
Doug Donahoo
So there you go. Plenty of stuff happening in the city of Shawnee, as Kate said, more information available tickets, time slot reservations available on our website city of shawnee.org, take a look there. You can find out information about all these events and more as we continue to close out 2025 if you have any comments, questions, ideas for episodes you'd like to hear, reach out to us, city of Shawnee. At City of shawnee.org, is the email address. Always happy to hear suggestions. And again, Kate, thank you so much for being on this episode of the Shawnee post and giving us a full rundown of the events.
Kate Kinkaid
Yeah, thanks for having me. I will put the new ladder truck on my calendar now.
Doug Donahoo
Excellent, excellent. We'll make sure that that's there so everybody can mark their calendars and be there when it is delivered in five years. Once again, this has been the Shawnee pulse podcast. My name is Doug Don who thanks so much for joining us. We'll see you in November.