When working with our clients, we sometimes have to accommodate special requests in regard to our volunteers. As an example, a new client, who was in her nineties, preferred not to have a male volunteer drive her to appointments. This apparently stemmed from the teenage notion that a male driving you around was thought to be a “boyfriend." I had to arrange for several women to drive her to various places.
Another elderly client needed someone to visit her in her home but she was “deathly afraid" of men. I had arranged for a nice gentlemen volunteer who already had waited over a year for a client, for “friendly visits” on Wednesdays at nine o'clock’; however, during our intake interview, her daughter said that a man would not be satisfactory. Because of this sudden request, I had to hurriedly locate a woman who could visit her on Wednesdays.
Betty Okamoto