I’m a native of the San Francisco Bay Area. I grew up in a suburb of about 15,000 people. It felt like a small town to me: one fire station, one supermarket, a small shopping center, a few gas stations and banks…all of the usual stuff.

It felt like a small town…until I moved to Manchester a year ago. While I don’t miss the traffic and general craziness of the Bay Area, and I marvel daily at the beauty of the mountains and the green, it’s a little isolating. I had an entire tribe of friends and family, people who I knew–even if I didn’t see them often– I could rely upon if there was an emergency.

Imagine living alone in a house on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. You may have mobility or other health issues, you no longer drive, and your nearest neighbor is a phone call–not a shout–away. That’s how many of the elderly in the Northshire live. When they call the office, I sometimes feel as though I might be the only person they talk with that day.

One thing I know for certain: people in Northshire communities love to take care of each other. Our amazing group of volunteers provide services and plain old companionship to their care recipients, things that cannot be easily measured. To know they are on someone’s mind makes care recipients feel appreciated and cared for. While driving someone to a doctor’s appointment or bringing them a bouquet of flowers cut from your yard doesn’t seem like much, such gestures mean a great deal to the folks on the receiving end. Small acts of kindness go a long way to make a person feel as though they are an important part of the community in which they live.

That’s what we try to do at Neighbor to Neighbor.