Volunteer Transportation:
Support from Lifelong Maine

Mainers sure know how to take care of one another!  Evidence of that is the long list of communities that are providing transportation at no or low cost to their residents who have no other way to get to appointments and errands.  Starting a program and maintaining it can be challenging. The Center on Aging Lifelong Communities program has developed a comprehensive program of supports for community-driven volunteer transportation programs. 

Transportation programs take on many forms – some are for medical appointments only, some are for older adults only, some rides are provided by volunteers using their own cars and some by staff using a van or bus. These variations reflect the need in the individual community as well as accessing services already in place.

In 2019, we began noticing how many Age-Friendly Communities were addressing the transportation domain by forming volunteer programs or projects. In 2020, Mary Beth Paquette, former Director of Neighbors Driving Neighbors, joined us as a Lifelong Fellow to support the newly forming and been-around-awhile AF transportation programs. 

Fast forward to 2022 – questions continued to come about not only how to initiate a program but also more detailed queries – How do we recruit and screen volunteers? Do we need insurance? How do we get riders? How do we keep track of all of the details?  To provide more in-depth information, the Lifelong Fellows Program partnered with the Maine Community Foundation and assigned Mary Beth and another Fellow, Barbara Wentworth, to tackle a two-tiered transportation project.

The Transportation Project consisted of determining which communities were providing transportation and the details of their services. This required surveys and interviews with those providers. That information became a list that is available at Find a Ride (lifelongmaine.org).

The second tier was to write a Volunteer Transportation Manual. Chock-full of great information, the manual can be found here  Program Manual (lifelongmaine.org)

For those Age-Friendly communities that are providing transportation, contact us if you would like to have excess liability insurance for your volunteer drivers.

If any Age-Friendly community needs assistance with their transportation needs, you can contact Mary Beth at marybethpaquette4@gmail.com.