Driven to Volunteer: Cheryl Roberts Gives Freedom to East County Elderly

Cheryl Roberts recalls conversations with a Pearl Harbor survivor, a quadriplegic veteran, a war bride from World War II and a woman who’d been a small-town schoolteacher in Iowa.

“We get involved,” she says. “There are colorful characters and great stories.”

Roberts is no bartender or shrink, but she drinks in her interactions with older and disabled residents as a volunteer driver.

For 32 years, Roberts was a teacher, wife and mom—busy from dusk till dawn with her career and children’s busy schedules.

Always in the back of her mind was a desire to help others and give back to her community, but there was simply no time.

Now volunteering is a cornerstone of her life.

At 62, Roberts, who moved to La Mesa in 2006 in retirement after teaching 25 years in the high-desert area near Hesperia and Victorville, says her volunteer work is one of the elements that makes her new life rich and interesting.

“Ain’t retirement grand?” she asks, smiling.

For the past three years, Roberts has been a volunteer driver for the Rides4Neighbors program that provides transportation for older and disabled people in the East County, including La Mesa, El Cajon, Lakeside, Santee, Lemon Grove, Alpine and Spring Valley.

Every Thursday, she devotes her day to driving all over the county to take people to medical appointments, shopping, the bank, the grocery store, hair appointments and adult-education classes.

Driving her own car—her mileage costs are reimbursed—Roberts is a personal chauffeur to men and women who are housebound and unable to drive. It’s been the perfect fit for Roberts’ life and schedule, and she says it almost feels as if she gets more out of it than those she helps.

“I absolutely love doing this,” she says. “It does a lot for us as drivers and the people themselves.”

The conversations and friendships she’s made have enriched her life, she says.

At first, she made herself available three days per week, but soon found that was too much. Now she drives all day Thursdays—and on other days as necessary—ferrying as many as six different men and women.

Thursdays are full as she juggles pickups and drop-offs and locations in opposite directions.

“It’s like bam-bam-bam,” she says with a laugh. “It can be like Chinese checkers moving people around.”

As of late 2011, the Rides4Neighbors program was aiding 860 riders with 52 volunteer drivers, one full-time staff member, two part-time staffers and the help of office volunteers. Through Nov. 30, volunteers had driven nearly 57,000 miles and provided more than 6,000 trips.

The program began in 2006 under the direction of the city of La Mesa with grants from the San Diego Association of Governments and the Grossmont Healthcare District.

It is, says Roberts, a program that makes a difference. It allows people to retain their independence and get out to meet and talk with people and enjoy the things they’ve always enjoyed.

“Riders continually express appreciation,” she says. “Some are alone 24/7, with no one to talk to. It’s a chance to get out and away for a few hours.”

Over the past three years, Roberts has developed friendships with regular riders. She looks forward to reconnecting each week. As a lover of history, she says, meeting older people and hearing their stories is “like an unfolding of history.”

Sometimes, she’s felt the pain of losing those friends. She says five regular riders of hers have died, including two in recent months.

But the positives of helping and meeting others far outweigh the inevitable losses, she says.

“We are impacted and touched as much as they are,” Roberts says.

Since moving to La Mesa, Roberts counts her blessings. Not only does she have a new home and new friends, but moving to San Diego County—a place she’d long hoped to inhabit—gives her an opportunity to enjoy the arts, shopping, trolley rides downtown and her adopted Chargers and Padres teams.

She gardens, still does some substitute teaching and works part-time as needed for the city of La Mesa.

She’s divorced now, and her children live far away, but she loves the La Mesa area and is happy she gets a chance to finally volunteer.

Along with the Rides4Neighhbors program, Roberts also is a volunteer counselor for the Journey Community Church’s one-on-one Not Alone program. She finished the 14-week training about a year ago, and has been working with a person in need since then.

Counselors help people deal with “any kind of crisis” in their lives, from the loss of a spouse or a child to being laid off from a job.

Again, for Roberts, it’s another chance to connect. And, as she looks to her own future, she’s grateful that programs like Rides4Neighbors exist and that volunteers are willing to help others. 

She says she wishes such a program were available back in Indiana where her 87-year-old mother and a handicapped brother live.

 “People here are very fortunate to have this program,” she says.