FISH Drivers Needed
Enjoy Driving or Talking on the Telephone?
FISH of Lexington, Inc. stands for Friendly Independent Sympathetic Help. The non-profit program gets Lexingtonians to and from medical appointments. Founded in 1972 the program hasn’t stopped – even for a two-year global pandemic.
Covid didn’t halt the program, but drivers and phoners dwindled, according to Publicity Chair and FISH Board Member Janet Perry.
The program serves about 50 people per month. Before the pandemic, FISH had 90 drivers. The number’s way down. Clients must be senior citizens or someone with a disability, and it’s only for medical appointments.
“You’re not going to T.J. Maxx,” Perry said of the service.
The nine-member board isn’t planning a party for the 50th. Instead, they’re reaching out to the community for more volunteers.
“We’re not really celebrating,” Perry said. “We just want people to know we’ve been doing this for 50 years. We are proud we made it through Covid.”
FISH has an ingenious system. Folks who need a ride call an answering service two business days before the appointment.
The organizer receives the information and passes it to the scheduled Phone FISHer. Perry, Mary Burnell, and others serve as Phoners – or Phone FISHers.
She or he then coordinates between the driver and the person who has an appointment. Organizing takes about one hour – once a month. It’s the same for drivers.
A database is required before any of that can happen. Jim Fesler, a FISH driver since 2003, is the data schedule coordinator and is president of the board of directors.
Jackie, Jim’s wife, took the steering wheel in 2008. She also serves as the program’s treasurer.
“I enjoy driving for FISH,” she wrote via email. “I meet interesting people, and the clients really appreciate the personal attention.”
She added, “It’s easy to set aside one day a month for FISH driving, and it’s so gratifying to be able to provide this valuable service for my neighbors.”
Jim started a few years earlier, in 2003. “I had just retired and was looking for volunteer activities that I felt would be meaningful and flexible,” Jim Fesler said. “I didn’t want the Monday, Wednesday, Friday. FISH was a great match.”
Yes, it was — for Jim Fesler and clients who needed rides.
“I’ve always really enjoyed the experience of meeting people I don’t know, chatting with them, and realizing you’re doing something that is helpful for them.
Jim doesn’t crank the tunes on his radio. “I don’t do that because people vary in terms of taste,” Jim said. “It’s easier to chat.”
Most times, Jim said, the driver stays in the waiting room. If it’s a four-hour appointment, people read a book or sit in the car. If the appointment is in Lexington, the driver goes home and returns later.
One day a driver will have one ride, and another four are scheduled. And, Fesler said, drivers can always refuse a request.
“We always had three drivers for each day of the month,” Jim said of the pre-covid lineup. “Our aim was to have three drivers for each day. That way, we can meet the demand. Now we’re down to two. We got hit by covid badly.”
That’s why FISH is sending out the call for volunteers. It amounts to one hour a month on the telephone and approximately one hour a month driving. Drivers and passengers require vaccinations, and mask-wearing is up to the people in the car.
“If either [the driver or the client] requests a mask, we wear them,” Fesler said. “We honor the wishes of either client or driver. That’s the world we’re in right now.”
Beverly Kelley was one of the first drivers, Perry said. Former Select Board member Peter Kelley drives too.
Beverly called from the Grand Canyon or someplace out west to chat about FISH. (Thank you!) She started driving in 1975 after Kathie Stuart, one of FISH’s founders, approached her.
“She asked if I’d be a driver for FISH,” Beverly said. “It was many years before we had kids. I’ve kept at it and have been doing it ever since.”
Beverly, who served as the president in the 1980s, still does one day a month but takes the summer off.
“We used to take people anywhere, and you didn’t have to be a senior citizen,” Beverly said and listed locations, including the bank, hairdressers, and grocery shopping.
But not T.J. Maxx – although its founding occurred in 1976 …
Through the years, the program has benefited the volunteers and clients.
Volunteer, and you just might run into an old friend or colleague.
Barbara Palant, a FISH driver for the last ten years, recalled an almost Karmic encounter.
“I was a student at Simmons School of Social Work,” Palant said. “One of the requirements was Statistics. I was never terribly good at math. I had a terrible time. The professor was not very clear in teaching, I thought.”
Others were seemingly doing OK, she said. She asked herself why she was doing so poorly. (Palant was a new mother, had no daycare, and was a full-time student.)
“I couldn’t stay after class, and she wasn’t really available,” Palant said.
She received a C for her efforts. “I was devastated,” she said. “I had a full scholarship from the NIMH (now the National Institute of Health).
“There goes my scholarship,” she thought.
Years passed, and life went on. “I frequently picked up patients in Brookhaven Retirement Community. “I heard this woman’s name and said to myself, ‘it can’t be.'”
Palant wasn’t sure she’d recognize her and wondered if she’d have the courage to talk about her grade if it was her.
It was.
Palant asked if she taught at Simmons. Yes, she replied. Palant asked if she’d ever taught Statistics.
“Her voice dropped, and she said, ‘Oh, did you take that class.'”
She told Palant that the professor who usually taught the class was ill. The professor was told – not asked – to cover the course.
“‘I was terrible,'” she confessed to Palant. “‘ How did you do,'” she asked. Palant told her that it was the only C in her career, and she was a scholarship student.
She felt terrible and confessed she wasn’t very good at it herself. She, Palant said, felt awful. She went to her medical appointment at Mount Auburn Hospital and climbed back into the car when she finished.
Palant said, “I hope you got a good report.”
“‘ I didn’t get a C,'” she told Palant and again told her she felt awful.
Palant told her not to worry about it. “I did OK.”
She took her back to Brookhaven and continued driving. She’s “paying it forward,” she said. “If I have to ask for help, I won’t feel guilty.”