Live Captioning by AI-Media KATHERINE NEWMAN: Can everyone see the presentation? We will go ahead and get started. Thank you, guys, for joining us today. Our webinar on Volunteer Transportation Services in Rural Nevada. Penetrating a technical assistance specialist with national aging and disability transportation center. Some quick constructions for participating in today's webinar. All participants are muted the cameras off. Also as with all events the session is being recorded in the recording and all materials will be posted on our website. We will send you on email letting you know when those are available. We have closed captioning available. That link is in the chat where you can go and get captions on your screen. Any questions for the presenter please put those in the Q&A. We have a reserve time at the end of the presentation we will address your questions. If we run out of time we will follow-up those with the email. Chat is also open and can be used for general comments or technical assistance. My fellow teammate, Jane Mahoney, will be keeping an ion things posted in the chat. A little bit about NADTC. A federally recognized technical assistance Center and funded the Federal transit administration with guidance from the Administration for Community Living. We are operated through a partnership between Easter Seals and USAging. Our mission is to provoke the availability of accessible transportation options that serve the needs of older adults, people disabilities, caregivers and communities. And the way we strive to meet that mission is to provide resources and assistance to agencies to deliver transportation programs for older adults, people with disabilities and caregivers. We provide technical assistance and training. We are available via email and phone to answer your individualized questions that you may have. This webinar is an example of the training that we provide. We also provide publications and resources for aging and disability communities to help provide safe and reliable transportation, these can be found on our website. Jane, if you could put a link to the website and the chat that would be great. We do a lot of coordination and partnership across the country, both in terms of coordinating with other national organizations in the field of transportation as well as other agencies who serve older adults and people with disabilities. We also provide community grants and do coalition work and information about these can be found on our website. Here are some ways to find us. Our website at NADTC.org. We have information on funding opportunities, information, newsworthy information for transportation and we also have heat alerts that are sent out to our mailing list. You can join that with the QR code on the screen or join the other website. And then we have our social media accounts that you can follow us on. Object introduced today's speaker, Molly Walt. She is the CEO for Nevada Rural Counties RSVP. She joined the organization in December 2020. She's responsible for the overall strategic, fiscal, government and community relations and operational responsibility of the RSVP organization, and she's here to tell us about the RSVP transportation services. I will turn it over to Molly. MOLLY WALT: Thank you. Thank you for having me this morning and thank you for everyone attending. I am CEO of Nevada Rural Counties RSVP program, retired Senior volunteer program. We do receive AmeriCorps funding for the retired Senior volunteer program. With me I also have the program director, Melissa Connors, who will be here to assist me on information that I may have missed, she will be able to help with questions as well. RSVP. Our mission is to provide lifesaving volunteer programs that help seniors and adults with disabilities maintain their independence with dignity throughout 15 rural counties in the state of Nevada. Who are we? Nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation. We are in our 52nd year being established. We service all 17 counties, however only two of them, Washoe and Clark, we surfaced them with virtual programs. The 15 we do try to offer all of our 11 different programs that we have. Volunteers and independent contractors. We are a 6% grant funded. We receive a federal grant and then we receive multiple state grants through our aging and disability division of the state of Nevada, and through funding of healthy Nevadans and will hear and that which is Nevada Department of transportation. We have matching funds we have to fund raise for and review annual quarterly reports for all of those grants as well. I'm going to go into our transportation program. For our transportation program it is our largest program that we operate right now. The transportation is two facet. We have the fleet vehicles and volunteers whose personal vehicles. Transportation program is a free escorted door-to-door program. That means we ask our volunteers to drive up to the home of the senior rental with a disability, and then we ask them to escort them out, meaning that they are able to assist them with their walker, help them down the front step if they have one, and get them into the car. We ask that the assistance isn't much more than elbow to wrist, however I do know some of our volunteers assist a little bit more than that. We also do paratransit. All of our drivers are required to do the PASS training, passenger assistance safety and security. We have a fleet of 17 vehicles and 13 of those are paratransit vehicles. When we are providing the transportation in our fleet those drivers are 100% volunteerism. We do have our home companion good neighbor program. On companions. We ask that they drive their personal vehicle and they get a mileage reimbursement which is also funded by our state grant on that one as well. Our drivers then who are home companions don't necessarily just transport, they do visit with our clients on different occasions. They will make the phone calls ensuring that our clients are doing OK. We ask that they make those phone calls once a week and (indiscernible) once a week as well. The history of the transportation program started in 1984 the Carson City Rotary donated our first vehicle. Carson City is where the hub office is and then we have field offices throughout the state of Nevada. In 1999 is when we received our first Nevada Department of Transportation vehicle. Since then as I will explain later we have received quite a few after that as well. 2017 Carson City Toyota donated a vehicle. And then in 2019 there a TSD as we started receiving, to my knowledge, operating grants to help us with our transportation program which is funding for gas, fuel and insurance. Presently until 2019 until present we aggressively seek several different grants from NDOT, the cities, counties and state as well which has allowed us to increase the fleet to 17, and by the end of this year going into next year it looks as though we will be able to increase our fleet up to 23. This is just a few pictures of what our fleet looks like. We have what board transits which have the backlist. Many of our drivers for this vehicle because it is an electronic level lift from the back. This is a hybrid that we have in one of our most rural counties. Then we have our Dodge caravans that have the ramp off to the side, and then this is limited because it is then we can only see three people in the back because in the middle is where the wheelchair would go, and then a passenger up in the front passenger side. We have Dodge caravans and this is the intrepid Chrysler Voyager. We do receive donations through communities as well. This one I wanted to throw in because most of you know that Nevada is known for mining. When one of our vehicles was totaled in an accident, not our fault, mining invite mine County when we were able to get this donation the next day. Our transportation did not miss a beat because of this donation from the mining company. We do have some vehicles that are non-paratransit, and this is an example. You have the Toyota previous year. This is from another grant as well. Dodge Caravan in another county as well. What is the impact? The impact of the transformation program is really we are used and we get numerous referrals for our rural seniors living in rural communities to access essential services. Rural Nevada does not have a lot especially Doctor in their communities that we are asked to transport to more urban areas to access medical appointment, grocery shopping. Many of our rural communities which might even consider frontier might have a dollar store that is for their grocery shopping. We are asked to transport may be to go to Cosco, Walmart, for our individuals. The impact is also helping. Entities to help us with seniors and adults with disabilities maintain their independence avoid the long-term assisted living that is extremely costly and so if we can help them maintain their independence and live at home this is what we hope to do. We don't ask our drivers to just drive. We definitely don't want them to be what you would consider ridesharing. Every driver we ask is to provide companionship. We want that driver to be a friend to our seniors. We may not in the office while we are taking the appointments and requests. Our phone calls might be 30 seconds to one minute. We asked the drivers to be that friend. All of our volunteers are mandatory reporters and we want them to be able to get to know our clients to help produce that isolation and loneliness where our clients then feel comfortable then letting them know if there's any problems they are having. We want that friendship to foster within our driver and clients as well. We know that our transportation and all of our programs that we have are improving the quality of life of our seniors. We do an annual survey and 96, in 2023 96% of those who completed the service had stated that RSVP is improving the quality of life. That's something we really strive to do. And then we do have our transportation program is also used for critical emergencies as well. I will give you an example. We had a White Pine which is a Nevada client air floated to hospital in Utah. The hospital then calls us and says, "Is there anyway you can come and pick up the client one way back from St. George, Utah back to White Pine County Nevada?" Those are critical emergency transportation that we provide. This just gives you an idea of what we have done in 2023. This, to me, I think speaks volumes about our nonprofit organization. We drove a total of 338,613 miles. Our volunteers volunteered 47,269 hours and we were able to service 834 clients. Not just transportation but our other programs as well. Gives you an idea of what a small, nonprofit is able to do with volunteerism. This breaks down our miles. But we drove in personal vehicles and then fleet vehicle. 148,080 miles were driven by our volunteers in their personal vehicles and they get a mileage reimbursement at hundred 90,533 is driven in 2023 by our fleet vehicles. Here's an example of an RSVP volunteer going above and beyond. We had a 96-year-old client who is now 98, but she decided she wanted to try portable oxygen concentrator instead of her heavy portable oxygen tank. After she received it she could figure out how it worked so after our driver finished his day of driving we have a couple of drivers that will dedicate one full day in an area, he went back then to her home to help her, he YouTube it and was able to help her use her portable oxygen concentrator. He taught her how to do so. That's the companionship that our drivers have. This isn't a unique situation. All of our drivers are extremely compassionate about our clients. Just from January to August 2024 we have serviced 543 clients in just transportation. Our transportation program is growing at a rate that we are, I'm not going to deny it, we are having a hard time keeping up and receiving a lot of referrals from hospitals, social workers, home health agencies, and I asked them why are they calling us. It is because we are reliable. Our volunteers, if a volunteer calls in sick we ask staff then to take that ride. Last thing we want to do is have the clients have to cancel critical medical appointments. Just from January to August we've driven 170,612.1 miles with 100 active drivers throughout the state of Nevada. I'll give you example of White Pine County because this is in Nevada, and this is where we have the most miles. I want you to please take note that the miles were driven in our fleet by only two active drivers. They drive to the Salt Lake area, and I will show you a map for those of you who may not know the difference. They drive to the Salt Lake area twice a week. St. George, Utah maybe once a week and Las Vegas 2 to 3 times a month. Just from January to August 8 driven 52,416 miles which is actually unbelievable to me. I couldn't be more thankful for them. They provided 811 trips. Just to give you an idea were they go twice a week as they go from Ely to Salt Lake for specialist appointments. A lot of cataract appointment to go to, dialysis. The reason why we are called upon is because their County bus does not go across county lines. The County bus she doesn't even go on unpaved road, and enrolled Nevada we have a lot of gravel. We do provide a lot of transportation for long-distance destinations in our rural counties. Here's another example to Cedar city Utah. Three hours and eight minutes one way. That's a full day for our drivers. And then from Eli to Las Vegas which is three hours and 40 minutes. Again, it is a full-day trip. Our client, to become a client is 16 years or older, 18 to 59 years of age with verified disability. Use another comment from one of our clients because we do reassurance, we do assessment calls. After a ride we randomly select one of our clients to call and ask how our service was for that day, and one of our clients said, "Rodney was readily kind yesterday. He drove me from the doctors appointment after the doctor instructed me to go to the ER, Rodney took me to the ER and then took me back to check to make sure she's doing OK." I couldn't ask for anything more from our volunteers. Our volunteers and drivers are definitely part of the program. Through mandatory reporter so they report back to us if anything is of concern. They are all background check and get training for PASS if they like the training for passport paratransit which we encourage, and then through our grantees they are asked to do the elder abuse and neglect as well. We asked because of our AmeriCorps grant retired senior volunteer our volunteers of 55 and older, however we will accept younger volunteers as well. We try not to go below 25 years of age. Our volunteers provide companionship. They do receive a mileage reimbursement when using their personal vehicle, and they receive lunch when transporting in our fleet vehicle. That is through grants as well. Then we do volunteer recognition annually and then we tried to send them gifts as well just noting them know that without them we would not have a program. So then how do we receive our transportation requests? We used to do it in each individual field office. Now it comes to the Carson City field office. Gone web-based. We've moved from an Excel spreadsheet to a web-based platform. Transportation client will call us they will press zero. They will ask what County fair call from. Name, date and time, address of the appointment. The reason for the appointment, and it's all based on grant reporting we need as well. If they need additional stop we allow our clients have three additional stops. It could be medical, shopping, it could go to the DMV office. The post office, the bank, and we do ask that the clients receive in most areas one request per week, and in other areas they can get up to three requests a week. Then the employees ensure that the request is within the county guidelines when taking that request. And then our requests go to our dispatcher. The dispatcher then goes into the scheduling platform. She generates a report and then confirms the drivers availability and we have a list of drivers and what days they are available and what times. Some like Wednesday in the morning. Some will say Thursday afternoon is all I can give you. We look at those then and then the dispatcher will start dispatching those rights via email, text or phone because a lot of our drivers are seniors as well and they may not text. They may not email. They would prefer to get a phone call. Then the dispatcher assigns the request to the drivers. The dispatcher then updates the status in our platform so that if the dispatcher and the scheduler extension zero is busy and then about a year ago we got a new phone system that will then all those phone calls go to a hunt group. For example, yesterday I received 12 different phone transportation scheduling phone calls because it goes to a high group and all staff in the Carson City office are part of that help macro. I've asked all staff to answer the phones because our clients do not like waiting, and they don't necessarily like leaving voicemails. We try very hard to address our phone calls day of, or within 24 hours if a message is taken. Just to give you an example though I think it was three Mondays ago we went over 100 phone calls in that day. That is five of us answering phone calls. We are extremely busy. After the driver has been dispatched and assigned the driver is asked to call the client within 24 hours before the appointment to confirm the pickup time. We ask for the appointment time and the driver confirms pickup time because the driver will then schedule their path. They will go through and say are we doing? Whom I going to pick up first And then drop off? We don't do that for the driver, we asked the driver to do that for themselves. All transportation requests are assigned to the driver 7 to 10 days before the appointment. What are our challenges? Our challenges definitely are the long-distance trips to essential services. That's why we have our guidelines. The grantors have asked us to have guidelines. We tried to fill the van. We know for example in the Carson City area we go to the Reno area and the more urban every Thursday. For Humboldt County which is Winnemucca, not sure if any of you are familiar. Go to the Reno area on urban Tuesdays and Fridays and then Elko on Thursdays. The larger areas on the other end. Limited public transit options in the rural counties is really a challenge. Many of our County public brands and options do not go across county lines. That's where we are asked to pitch in. The cost of private transportation for clients. One client transported from one rural county to a more urban. It was 45 miles one way, and it cost our client and hundred and $75. Clients and seniors cannot afford that. Lack of ridesharing and taxi services are also a challenge for clients. And then in frequent and unreliable transportation services is a challenge as well. For us a challenge on our vehicles in rural Nevada peers and maintenance. Right now currently with road construction we seem to be replacing our windshield for fleets twice a month, not for the same vehicle but it seems like twice a month and being asked to replace the windshield for one of our fleet vehicles. Here's an example of driving on those gravel roads. The vans are very low to the ground. You can see here where destruction happens as well from the terrain of the roads that clients live on. And are being asked to. Here's another one that seems to be on the same, for a lot of our vans. We were extremely fortunate to sell that case to a grantor, Nevada Department of Transportation. In those rural communities we are getting SUV hybrid. We will be able to use that. Unfortunately we won't be able to transport paratransit that way but as long as we have paratransit vehicle available in that county we were granted hybrid SUVs, and we needed those to get us through the winter months and through the gravel roads that the clients live on. Other challenges that we have as well is our clients are really struggling with isolation and social disconnection living alone. Infrastructure barriers. Limited emergency transformation. Whether environmental factors cause challenges because the winter months. Volunteering service provider shortages. Everybody is looking for volunteers. It's hard to find volunteerism and volunteers willing to drive. And then our challenges are, the transportation guidelines exceptions. You make an exception for one, word spreads and now the exception is being asked several times a week for several different clients. That is a challenge we are trying to overcome and actually try to find solutions for those challenges. How do we address them? We would be nowhere without our grantors. The partnership with our grantors, like I mentioned in the transportation program, Nevada Department of Transportation and Nevada ADHD, aging and disability division. We would be nowhere without our partnerships with them. Also with local governments. We do receive a lot of support from our local governments as well, and our physicians offices. Something that previously we were not really reaching out to our physicians offices, but now we are. We reach out and ask them to help us with scheduling. Is there a way we can possibly schedule all of these clients from Elko going to Reno? We are requiring more detail when doing these scheduling because we do have to develop those partnerships and hopefully coordinate better scheduling for doctors appointments. We are reaching out to more of our service organizations. We are giving them some help and then we are asking them for the same health coming back as well. Then our hospital and care facilities. We are receiving a lot of referrals from our assisted living. They may provide transportation they cannot find drivers so they are asking for our assistance, and then in return we are asking for assistance from them as well when it may come for fuel repairs and maintenance funding. We are currently doing a volunteer recruitment campaign in hopes to pull on the heartstrings of those in our community to provide transportation. It should say providing stipends to our drivers as well because a lot of our drivers, like I mentioned, our seniors and inflation has played a part in there monthly bills and we are hoping to provide them with stipends to encourage them to continue to drive so they don't have to go back into the workforce. They will continue to seek additional funding's through vehicle donations and operating funds as well. Because that's always going to be an issue. Our transportation guidelines have helped us with financial sustainability. It has kept us from driving one client to Utah for now we know we are going to Utah in these days this is where you need to make your appointment with your doctor. If you need help with your physicians please call us and will try to add me for that as well. Our drivers will go into the physician's office with our clients and ask that they make our next appointment when we are available to drive them. This has helped us quite a bit as well. We work to ensure that seniors and adults with disabilities have transportation to access their needs. Our sustainability. How are we going to continue to do what we're doing? What we will continue to seek those grants, federal, state and local will continue to seek foundation grants. We are extremely fortunate for the foundation grants we receive. Our donations have taken a hit in the last year, and that is because of inflation. I called the clients and ask and it is because of inflation. One client gave us a very tearjerking story saying that Molly I was able to donate five dollars for every ride I received, which was once a week, but that's two can goods now and I need to get my green beans. She is unable to donate five dollars to us. We are seeking larger donations. We are trying to pull on the heartstrings of all of our businesses in hopes to increase our donations that way and then we do fundraiser. We have fundraising events and we will just continue to try to grow those fundraising. At this time you have any questions? KATHERINE NEWMAN: We will start with the Q&A. Molly, from Heather, we are seeing an increase in requests for assistance with not only transportation to medical appointments, but chaperone to assist with anesthesia day procedures and sedation. Working on a medical chaperone pilot project and we are in the beginning stages. You mentioned that you do help with your volunteers will go into the medical office. Are they able to assist with these types of requests? If so how do they approach that? Is there training? Is there an increase in insurance for you? Etc.? Any information would be helpful. MOLLY WALT: Our volunteers are not able to sign them out when they are out of anesthesia. What we do then look for is if they can find a companion or a caregiver on that comment I will give you an example. We have somebody in frontier Nevada who needs to travel and so we ask that she bring a neighbor with her. She was able to get a neighbor and then at neighbor then becomes a client of ours and we will stay with. Many times as well is caseworkers will sign the clients out. Then we will transport them with another volunteer of ours as well, but we are looking into because of the AmeriCorps conference I learned about the companion program as well as the medical companion we are looking into it. However, it is an increase in our insurance. That is something we are looking into. Right now either have the caseworker sign the client out but we do not, we will ask the client to provide us with caregiver or companion of theirs and that's how we transport them. KATHERINE NEWMAN: How much do you reimburse for mileage and do they have to file a 1099 form? Or is it not counted because it's technically not income for technically because it's volunteer reimbursement and there are couple of questions about that. MOLLY WALT: We do through state grant through ADSD variable to a reimburse our drivers $0.60 to the mile. It was $0.45 and we just had too many drivers say that they couldn't do it, so he asked for more grant funding and we were able to get it. It is, I believe it is a great reimbursement amounts. If they passed that threshold I believe with 3000 they get the 1099, but many of our drivers don't do that. Our drivers that drive their personal vehicles will only really do the in town. If they need to go long distance that's when we encourage them to use the fleet because then there's multiple people in that vehicle, it's more efficient. That way as well the personal vehicle driving is really just (indiscernible). KATHERINE NEWMAN: This is a great question from Eric in Wisconsin. He asks, "How do you deal with coordination with other organizations in your areas that do similar work? Are there county coordinating committees? MOLLY WALT: Yeah. We know all of their guidelines. So, for example and Winnemucca, given the example of Winnemucca, their transportation is through their senior service. We are in complete communication with them. They know when we drive long-distance and locally and we know when they do. We never go on the same days. We do the same with, I believe all of the counties actually. We do not transport to the same location on the same day. If our client was to call and say I cannot change my appointment before we put in for an exception and before our dispatcher recruiting for an exception to transport oddity we don't normally go we will reach out to that county or to the other services and see whether or not they can transform that individual. If they cannot because the bus might be full then we will put in for an exception, and if we can financially do it and have a driver to do it we will transport them on that day. We don't like to do it because then that means our fleet vehicle is transporting one person. We try not to do that because it really isn't efficient, but yeah. That's how we do it. We do a lot of calls to our partnering agencies, which takes a lot of time and I am trying to figure out a better way. I really just don't have the answer. KATHERINE NEWMAN: I was going to say that that seems like a lot of time spent coordinating, however the benefit I would think most often with out we may be that time spent. I think that's wonderful that you do have those partnerships because most often times in rural areas you don't have that. I have a question about PASS. Is it required for all drivers? But because you are volunteer drivers is it not considered nonemergency medical transportation drivers? MOLLY WALT: Our volunteer drivers can tell us whether or not they will transport wheelchairs or not, and so we have a list of drivers that will. In our scheduling platform they will have the individuals name and in parentheses it will say this individual is in a wheelchair. Then we dispatch those individual riots to the drivers that have the PASS training. And for us we ran into a situation a few years ago where Steve did not have anybody who was a trainer for PASS. That's where I stepped in and said I'm going to kind of take control so we can train one driver tomorrow if we have one sign-up. I am a trainer for PASS that gives us a little bit more flexibility, freedom, initiative to verify get a driver signing up today who is willing to do it then I will schedule the training with them tomorrow. KATHERINE NEWMAN: Great. To provide supplemental insurance for your volunteers? MOLLY WALT: Volunteers if they are driving their personal vehicle do have to have their own insurance. They are the first and then we would be the second. KATHERINE NEWMAN: Great. What web-based programs, I guess I am assuming this is a scheduling question, what web-based program do you use for scheduling maybe? MOLLY WALT: Currently we use Verizon reveal. We went that route because we were able to have GPS systems Verizon. On that we are looking at a different because it's hard. It really wasn't for all of our counties we have to have separate logins. They were able to get all of us in one word could have a drop down. When they call you have to log into Humboldt. If somebody calls from Winnemucca or Elko have have separate logins. It is not ideal. That's when I started looking into a different one, however the one looking into now does not have GPS, and I'm telling you GPS is extremely important to have because if a vehicle breaks down, we had a vehicle break down in the middle of nowhere. I was able to call that towing company, give them the longitude and latitude and they were able to find our vehicle. So, Verizon Revealed. That's what we use currently. KATHERINE NEWMAN: How far in advance must the request be submitted? MOLLY WALT: Depends on the County. Carson City, Douglas and Lyon County are definitely the busiest so we ask for seven days in advance. In our other counties we ask for a minimum of five. We do next day, that would be an exception, then we will do that if we can find a driver, but we do keep notes to make sure that it is not the same client habitually calling in meeting the next day. We try to enforce our clients is to let them know that we are not a taxi service. KATHERINE NEWMAN: Great. Another question. Have you had any luck with financial support from healthcare providers and facilities since you helped produce no-shows and keep exam rooms filled? MOLLY WALT: Unfortunately no, but I can be extremely persistent and it doesn't mean that I'm going to stop asking, but no. We need to ask. KATHERINE NEWMAN: It doesn't hurt to ask, right? Couple questions regarding drivers. If CPR and first aid training a requirement for your volunteers? MOLLY WALT: No, it is not a requirement, however it is something we encourage. KATHERINE NEWMAN: PASS training is required for all who drive wheelchair vehicles, correct? MOLLY WALT: Most deftly. We ask our drivers and convenience right away if something, down 911. KATHERINE NEWMAN: Outside of the mileage reimbursement and the free lunch provider volunteers do you provide any other incentives? I said you do the recognition annually and you try to send them gifts. I think that all of those probably help with her volunteer retention. Is there anything outside of that that you do for them? MOLLY WALT: Belisa is here and is in charge of the volunteers. T-shirts. We give T-shirts. SPEAKER: Is developing that relationship with our volunteers. Most service coordinators and field offices have a really good bond and have fostered a good rapport with our volunteers. If we ask they come. Plus they have developed a deeper connection with a lot of our clients, and so they don't hesitate when asked just because we really search for those volunteers who have that service of the heart. Arms out for anything else to go back to them and think it's huge Tecumseh looking for volunteers. KATHERINE NEWMAN: Do you coordinate with any of the Nevada tribes? MOLLY WALT: One. That was the help from a service coordinator. Because she was a member of the tribe as well. We have reached out. We not necessarily have seen the need, or the need isn't coming to us. The question that we have asked then is, is it something that they don't need us, or do we need to be more aggressive in getting ourselves into the tribe? For us we felt that the one that we did that we were able to we were not able to get in until one of our service coordinators joined us and was a member of the tribe. SPEAKER: Some of our tribes were in one of our larger counties where we do not offer access, so they are not all rural areas. We do have services and I think we have been invited in one of our newest counties where we just started transportation a few months ago. We've been invited to do a presentation, it just hasn't worked out yet. MOLLY WALT: That service coordinator as well is Native American. You have to have that what we have found in that relationship. KATHERINE NEWMAN: Right. One of the big questions that I'm sure is on everyone's mind is to have any recommendations on where to start if you're just ready new program like this? Trying to recruit volunteers. Find funding. I mentioned your grants etc. of course and funding vehicles. Too many recommendations on a new start up program? POLLY MEMBRINO: I definitely recommend going to local dealership. If there's a dealership that is willing to donate a vehicle and make sure you have the stories of the need behind it and that can be, every community has a need that seniors are living alone with no family around and they need to get these medical appointments. What we found as well is sending emails is not effective. We need to be able to go to the doctors offices. Most definitely find where and which doctors are seen your seniors. Which grocery stores and start their for the funding. Asking him for fuel cards. Asking them to start there, but if needing a vehicle, or even I do have to say and everything we do for our volunteers as well is we did get foundation grants to give our volunteers a fuel card. Try to do that annually, if not twice a year as a thank you. There's foundations that don't want to give just the dollar and say use $3000. Use it as you want. They want to say I want to know this is going and we are able to get fuel cards. I was start to flee with the service organizations for volunteerism. We are able to go to the Lions Club and we got some volunteer drivers for each of the communities Lions Club. We were able to go to the faith-based organizations, two presentations and get volunteers that way. We were also able to get fuel money, but give looking for a vehicle that you want to start with I would definitely encourage you to go to your local dealership and see if they wouldn't be able to donate a used vehicle. KATHERINE NEWMAN: Do you coordinate with any veteran services organizations. MOLLY WALT: All of them. The reason is they provide transportation as well. Many of our drivers are veterans. That is one of our partnerships as the VA hospital throughout the area and the Utah area and in Vegas. We had calls of saying we can't transport, can you transport? Recall them letting them know as well letting them know their schedules and definitely we work with all of them. KATHERINE NEWMAN: Great. MOLLY WALT: Open communication is key. KATHERINE NEWMAN: Keep the visits going. You mentioned fuel cards. How much are the fuel cards that they received? MOLLY WALT: They received $50. Twice a year they receive a $50 fuel card. KATHERINE NEWMAN: To require additional documentation from your volunteer drivers such as copies of auto insurance, drivers license and things like that. Can you detail that? SPEAKER: We need their DMV history for the past three years, vehicle insurance and drivers license. KATHERINE NEWMAN: Creek. One more question. Does your program ever prefer individuals to other services such as Medicaid if they have Medicaid transportation, public transit, paratransit amounts available and other faith-based transportation volunteer programs in your area. MOLLY WALT: Within all of the areas the 15 rural counties I'm not sure is a faith-based that does provide transportation. If we can't do it we definitely refer over to the public transportation and refer back to us as well. It was the first one? The referral? KATHERINE NEWMAN: Medicaid and even today. If there Medicaid recipients they have medical transportation benefits. Do you kind of process through eligibility and asked that question to eligibility for your callers? MOLLY WALT: We do not. MTM, that's Medicaid, they refer to us. They're having a hard time finding drivers in the rural communities and so but they are asking their drivers is to drive from the urban area to a rural area, pickup the client go to the appointment and go back. They have asked us if we could maybe take on their clients, and then they would give us the reimbursement on that end. Right now we have not ventured into that because I do not want to overcommit, because like I said we are receiving referrals from home health agencies, hospitals, government and we are having a hard time keeping up with what we have. Once I make that commitment, because I have to tell you one thing we don't do is be very, very rarely cancel. I don't want to overcommit at this point. KATHERINE NEWMAN: Will you speak of lunch for your drivers how does it work? Gift card local restaurant? MOLLY WALT: When they are driving they have to drive more than four hours in a consecutive day, they then go to lunch, there is a per diem. We go with the GSA rate per DM. They submit that the end of the month of their receipt and one we submit a reimbursement for them. When they are driving most of the time it is a drive-through because they will have a car full, then full of clients. It's like a drive-through type of situation. KATHERINE NEWMAN: I think our last question for today is your drivers get paid from their home to drive, or did they just get paid for the first and last mile, the unloaded miles or is it just when they've got someone in the vehicle? MOLLY WALT: All of our offices where the fleets are located, which is our main office and our field offices, is what we consider through AmeriCorps volunteer station. They can from their home to the office to pick up the van, the fleet, they can get a $0.40 mileage reimbursement and home, but in all honesty we don't have any drivers that look for that mileage reimbursement. If they are driving their personal vehicle it's from the start of their house, from their homes the clients home, to the appointment then back then. That's the $0.60 mileage reimbursement. If they are driving their personal vehicle. KATHERINE NEWMAN: Great. If you are open to getting other additional questions after this presentation we had an attendee asked if they could get contact information for additional questions for you or someone in your organization, if you could put that in the chat that would be great. If not that's going to be the end of the event for today. I think on your screen you should see NEDTC contact information, email and toll-free number. That's open Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM Eastern standard Time. That is for our technical assistance service that we provide. Again, I invite you all to join the monthly newsletter. Again, great information. Not to become cumbersome. They will not fill up your mailbox every month. Great information and thank you for your service. MOLLY WALT: Thank you for having me. KATHERINE NEWMAN: Bye-bye.