When an automobile accident left Yvette Velie with no way to get to her volunteer job at the Northwest Hospital Center, in Randallstown, the 80-year-old Ellicott City resident turned to Neighbor Ride.

She’s glad she did.

With Neighbor Ride, Velie not only has a ride to her work as a patient advocate every Wednesday, she has a new friend: Steve Sternheimer, her volunteer driver.

“I like it,” said Velie of the service. “It was right for me. I’ve gotten to know some good people.”

Velie is one of nearly 1,000 seniors who uses the nonprofit, volunteer-driven Neighbor Ride, which offers low-cost rides to Howard County residents 60 and older.

Neighbor Ride is celebrating its five-year anniversary this month. In its five years, it has grown to include 217 volunteers and 978 registered passengers, Community Outreach Coordinator Colleen Konstanzer said.

About half of the rides provided are to and from medical appointments, she said, while the other half are for such things as shopping, visits to the hair dresser and other appointments.
 
In-county, round-trip rides range from $6-$12, depending on distance, and people going to the same destination can share the cost. For trips outside the county, such as Baltimore or Silver Spring, the cost is $21-$33.
 
Income-eligible seniors can ride for free through the Good Neighbor Fund, Konstanzer said, and those traveling to volunteer jobs can get a discount. Over the past year, Konstanzer said, the number of seniors using the Good Neighbor Fund has increased, which she said might be a result of the faltering economy.
 
The ride fees collected are used for organizational expenses, such as recruitment, training and retaining volunteers, and promoting the service, said Konstanzer.
 
“Neighbor Ride is truly meant to be a service to seniors in Howard County, and we work hard to ensure that financial issues do not present a barrier to seniors’ ability to access transportation,” Konstanzer said.
 
Program began in 2004

The idea for Neighbor Ride was born in 2001, when a Howard County Office on Aging study concluded that the county’s senior population would double by 2020. A subsequent survey found that the top two concerns for seniors were health care and transportation, Konstanzer said.

Neighbor Ride was created as a partial answer, and it began offering rides in November 2004.

“Its mission is to decrease isolation and improve the quality of life for the county’s older residents,” Konstanzer said.

A mother of four, Konstanzer herself has volunteered to drive county seniors, and has even brought her kids along for the ride. With both her parents no longer living, she said, the rides give her children a chance to interact with another generation.
 
She said that “very neat friendships” have formed between volunteers and passengers, including between two Korean War pilots, one a volunteer driver, the other who uses the service.

Another example is the friendship between volunteer Velie and her regular driver Sternheimer, 68, a retired government worker.
Velie said that during her rides with Sternheimer, the two talk about such subjects as music and traveling.
 
Sternheimer said he has been volunteering with Neighbor Ride for two years, and his wife, Sue, a ride coordinator, has been volunteering since she retired in 2005.

“My family has a long history of volunteerism,” he said. “My mom and dad helped run a homeless shelter in the 1980s in Nashville.” He said he typically volunteers three times a week, but has done up to six rides in one week. He and his wife also run a soup kitchen in Laurel.
 
Sternheimer said he and his wife feel that to build a community, people have to be active and involved, and Neighbor Ride is an important aspect of that.
 
“Not all nonprofits are equal,” he said, “Neighbor Ride is a model for how others should be run.”
 
This month, Neighbor Ride was honored as the county’s best charity/nonprofit in the annual Best of Howard competition held by Howard magazine, a sister publication of the Howard County Times.
 
Brad Closs, director of Neighbor Ride , said he is “amazed every day” at what the service offers, from the volunteers who drive to those who work in the office helping schedule rides and do other tasks.
 
He said one of the most gratifying aspects is the comment cards Neighbor Ride receives from seniors.

Neighbor Ride provides cards for seniors to comment on the service, he explained, and about half of them respond. And virtually everyone who responds, he said, lauds the service.
 
“I’d be stuck at home without you,”  one senior wrote. “Life would be bleak without Neighbor Ride,” wrote another.

Such comments “really hit home,” Closs said.

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