Programs & services
Eight ways we keep a promise.
Every programme below is free, has no means test, and can be started with one phone call. Take one, take all eight, or take a break and come back in the spring.
Programme 01 · Care at home
Friendly Visits
One trained volunteer. The same day every week. For as long as you both want it.
A visit runs about two hours and is shaped entirely by the person receiving it. Some are card games and loud arguments about the Lions. Some are quiet — a volunteer reading the paper aloud while the laundry turns. Some are a walk to the corner and back, slowly.
What matters is that it is the same face, at the same time, so the week has a shape again.
What a visit can include
- Company, conversation, and someone to be listened to
- Light help around the house — the top shelf, the stiff jar, the tangled cord
- A walk, a garden sit, or a trip to the porch
- Reading mail, sorting post, or writing a reply
- Practising a hobby together: cards, dominoes, knitting, music, prayer
Not personal care. Our volunteers do not provide bathing, dressing, medication or nursing. If that is what is needed, call us anyway — we will connect you with a partner who can.
Typical visit length
Median length of a match
Programme 02 · Care at home
The Warm Line
A real human voice at an agreed time every morning — and a knock on the door if it goes unanswered.
You choose the window. A volunteer calls, and the conversation is whatever you want it to be: two minutes or twenty. We note nothing clinical. We are checking that you are there, and that you have been spoken to today.
If a call is missed we try again in an hour. If the second call is missed, a coordinator drives out. Since 2020 that protocol has brought help to eleven people who could not reach a phone.
Choose your rhythm
- Daily check-in — every morning, seven days a week, including holidays
- Weekday call — Monday to Friday, for people with family nearby at weekends
- Video visit — if you would rather see a face; we will set up the tablet
- Storm & heat calls — extra rounds whenever a weather advisory is issued
Programme 03 · Care at home
Meals & Groceries
Hot food four days a week, and a pantry box of things people actually grew up eating.
Nutrition programmes fail when the food is unfamiliar. Ours is built from a menu written with participants: greens cooked properly, halal and kosher options, rice and stew, pierogi in February, and no cinnamon in the sweet potatoes unless you asked for it.
Every delivery is hand-carried to the kitchen by a volunteer who stays long enough to say hello. The meal matters. The two minutes at the door matter as much.
What arrives
- Hot dinners Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday
- A weekend bag with two ready meals and fresh fruit
- A monthly pantry box: shelf-stable staples, tea, and something sweet
- Halal, kosher, diabetic, low-sodium, renal and vegetarian menus
- A birthday cake, every year, without being asked
Programme 04 · Care at home
Rides & Errands
Door-through-door, not door-to-door. We walk you in, we wait, and we bring you home.
Missed appointments are rarely about not caring. They are about a bus that does not run, a waiting room with no chair, and nobody to remember what the doctor said. Our drivers stay for the appointment, take notes if you want them to, and stop at the pharmacy on the way back.
Where we drive
- Medical, dental and dialysis appointments
- Pharmacy, grocery shopping and the bank
- Worship services and congregation events
- Funerals, weddings and family visits
- Anywhere that matters to you — including the barber and the casino
Book three business days ahead where you can. Dialysis and same-day discharge rides are dispatched immediately — just call the Care Line.
Programme 05 · Care at home
Home Safety Squad
Retired tradespeople who fix, for free, the small things that end independence.
Most falls happen in the bathroom, on the stairs, or in a hallway with a burnt-out bulb. None of that requires a contractor. It requires an afternoon, a drill, and somebody who knows what they are doing.
Every new participant gets a free 40-point home safety walkthrough. Whatever we can fix that day, we fix that day.
| We install | Typical wait |
|---|---|
| Grab bars, shower seats, raised toilet seats | 7–10 days |
| Handrails and non-slip stair treads | 7–10 days |
| Brighter bulbs, motion lights, night lights | Same visit |
| Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms | Same visit |
| Threshold ramps and door widening | 3–5 weeks |
| Snow clearing and leaf removal | Seasonal, on call |
| Furnace filter changes and seasonal checks | Twice yearly |
grab bars installed since 2022 — and not one fall reported in a bathroom we fitted.
Programme 06 · Connection & support
Tech Together
Unhurried, one-to-one coaching. No jargon, no sighing, no taking the phone out of your hand.
We started this because participants kept asking the same thing: how do I see my grandchildren? Sessions run an hour, at your kitchen table, on your own device, at whatever pace suits. We write everything down in large print before we leave.
What people learn
- Video calls with family — and how to answer one
- Joining a telehealth appointment without panic
- Spotting scam calls, texts and "your grandson is in jail" fraud
- Photos: taking them, finding them, printing them
- Online groceries, prescriptions and bill payments
- Free device clinic — we will fix the volume, the font size and the notifications
Loaner tablets available. Thirty refurbished tablets with data are on permanent loan to participants who have no device of their own.
Programme 07 · Connection & support
Letters of Love
The lowest doorstep we have. Anyone, anywhere, can do this tonight.
Write a letter by hand to someone you have never met. Tell them about your day, your dog, the weather where you are. Do not offer advice, do not mention illness, and do not date it — letters get read again in March.
We read every letter before it goes out, then deliver it on a visit and read it aloud if the person would like us to. Classrooms, congregations, book clubs and workplaces have sent us bundles of two hundred at a time.
How to write one
- Handwrite it, in large clear print, on one side of the page.
- Open with "Dear friend" — we match letters to people, not the reverse.
- Keep it warm and everyday. Skip religion, politics and health.
- Leave it unsealed, and do not include your address.
- Post it to: Letters of Love, 1500 Woodward Avenue, Suite 210, Detroit, MI 48226.
letters delivered and read aloud since 2019, from 31 states and four countries.
Programme 08 · Connection & support
Caregiver Circle
For the daughter, the husband, the neighbour who has been doing this alone for four years.
Family caregivers are the largest unpaid workforce in Michigan and the least supported. Caregiver Circle exists to give them three things: a few hours off, a room full of people who understand, and somewhere to say the hard part out loud without being judged for it.
What is on offer
- Respite visits — up to four hours, twice a month, so you can leave the house
- Circle groups — facilitated, twice monthly, in Detroit, Southfield and Warren
- Dementia companions — volunteers trained specifically in dementia care
- The 9pm line — a peer caregiver you can text after the house is quiet
- Navigation help — plain-language guidance through benefits, waivers and paperwork
Not sure which programme fits?
Neither are most people who call us. Tell us what a hard day looks like and we will work the rest out together — usually in one conversation.