Friday, June 19, 2009
Everyone's granny
Virginia 'Grandma' Divers has been looking after little ones at the Greenvale School for 27 years.
JEANNA DUERSCHERL The Roanoke Times
Virginia Divers (center) works with Isaiah Helms and Khamari Garner on a puzzle at Greenvale School. Divers, 92, volunteers at the school through the Local Office on Aging's Foster Grandparent program, and doesn't plan on stopping anytime soon.
Click the button above to see all of our community coverage, or go straight to your community's homepage with the menu below.
More 'How to help' stories
- Truck keeps food bank rolling along
- Inmates become angels for animals
- How to help calendar
- Area health groups solicit help
- Volunteers lend a knowing ear
Archive
As Grandma Divers walked briskly around the classroom, pouring milk from a pitcher into small cups, the 3-year-old students huddled in a corner listening to a teacher read a giggle-generating story about a mouse and a cookie.
The 18 pint-sized students sat and jumped and shouted while the smell of cinnamon apples filled the room and the teacher told them, "We're going to serve y'all lunch in a minute, but you have to behave."
Grandma Divers served cooked mixed greens, apples and sausages onto plates and tables. At 92, she still keeps up with a classroom of children.
She and 13 other retired people over age 60 volunteer five days a week from 8 a.m. to noon at the Greenvale School in Northwest Roanoke through the Local Office on Aging. Grandma Divers, or Virginia Divers to the world outside Greenvale, is the longest-serving volunteer with 27 years at the school. And she says helping the children is vital to her.
"It helps me because I would've been gone if it weren't for them," she said. "They don't give you a chance to worry about yourself."
The LOA sponsors a Foster Grandparent program for volunteers to work with children younger than 5 at places like Greenvale, and a Senior Companion program for volunteers at senior communities or with homebound adults.
Federal grants to the LOA dictate volunteers be people with limited income, said Barbara James, director of the programs. The LOA pays them a stipend of $2.65 per hour, and in late May recognized their service in a ceremony at the Hotel Roanoke.
"It's very important for [children] to be in contact with older people," James said. "Older people have a wealth of knowledge to share."
During a recent midmorning break at Greenvale, foster grandparents drank coffee and talked about how "children get away with too much nowadays" and about how Divers has been an inspiration for many.
Divers cooked for 32 years in the kitchen of Burrell Memorial Hospital and for three years with Meals on Wheels, until she began volunteering at Greenvale in 1982. She said other than a cataract eye surgery in 2007 she hasn't had major operations, and her oldest son, who retired in the 1990s and died last year, once told her, "Mama, keep on working for as long as you can."
"I think a lot of people have learned from her," said Elizabeth Patricia Simpson Terrell, another volunteer. "She's always the same. She's always patient. I've never seen her get angry or lose her temper."
Once the tables were set and the children were eating, Divers served herself a plate and sat down at a small table. She ate with her eyebrows raised, scanning the room while some children tore apart their pancake and sausage sticks, others spilled their milk, and some ate their greens.
"You see why they don't let you get old here?" she said. "There's no rest."
After lunch, she cleaned the tables while the children read books. She stacked the dirty dishes onto a cart, pushed it down the hall and passed it to a woman in the kitchen.
"Thank you," Grandma Divers said to the woman. "See you tomorrow."
