A good idea has to start somewhere. In the case of the Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary’s “Home Team” initiative to provide seniors with free basic home maintenance, it began with a son thinking about how he’d enjoyed helping his Dad.

Explains Hays Englehart: “The Home Team was created after I lost my Dad. I used to go to my Dad’s house (near Palm Springs) to help him because he couldn’t move around very well – he had two bad hips. I’d arrive, give him a big hug and say, ‘Dad, I love you,’ and he’d say, ‘I love you, too — now here’s my list: The light bulb, I can’t reach it. I need to wash the windows. I need to fix that spigot. The toilet is running.'”

While Hays tackled the list, his father would sit nearby, chatting and laughing with him. It was together time.

After his father passed away in 2010, Hays found himself with underutilized handy-man skills and a desire to help other seniors. So, he took his idea to the other members of the Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary Club.

Finding volunteers was the easy part.

“In our Club, every member has participated to some extent,” says Hays. “They’ve either gone out, helped us with publicity, helped us with supplies, or helped us to find the seniors.”

Though the Home Team provides any needed supplies, their work requires more time than money. What they do spend stretches far, thanks to Bob Smith at the Orinda Hardware Store who sells supplies to the Home Team at cost.

To jumpstart the effort, the Home Team initially reached out to community leaders, local outreach organizations and service personnel. Hays and others gave presentations and handed out the Home Team brochures you can still find around town, including at the Lafayette Library and Learning Center.

Word spread – and it still does. To date, the Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary Club has helped over 700 seniors, sometimes multiple times. They’ve sent work teams out to as far as Pittsburgh-Bay Point and Richmond. They’ve also been the source of inspiration. Other Rotary Clubs have now started their own Home Teams, including ones in South Africa, Spain and Ireland.

Initially, though, the focus was Lamorinda, where Hays says the need is “surprisingly deep” because we have people who have lived in their homes for 40 or 50 years. They may own their homes, he says, but they survive day-to-day on low — and fixed — incomes. That makes the handyman with the $50 minimum out of budget reach.

Home Team workdays differ depending on number of clients and the size of the to-do lists. To start, the volunteers meet in a central location before going out in teams of at least two.

“The largest day we’ve had was 18 people,” says Hays. “We serviced over 20 seniors that day. Many times we send out as many as 6, if they have a laundry list of stuff.”

Finding clients is no longer an issue.

“Local senior centers, fire departments, police departments, Meals on Wheels — they all know about us,” says Hays.

So do many of the local seniors, who often contact the Home Team directly now.

No matter how many clients the Home Team has, though, the work is still the same as when Hays helped his Dad. It’s still about service with a smile while meeting individual needs.

Sometimes, that means immediate action, like the call Hays got from a social worker one Friday night before a long weekend. The woman had a client with a security problem.

“Her front door’s lock is broken,” Hays recalls the social worker explaining. “She is afraid. She takes her chair and puts it at the front door every night. Is there anything you can do to the help?”

By 9:30am the next morning the lock was fixed.

To learn more about the Lamordina Sunrise Rotary’s Home Team click here.