Photo by Howard Owens
NOTE: This is the fifth of seven stories The Batavian will publish today and tomorrow (Friday and Saturday) about this year's Chamber of Commerce award winners. The awards will be presented on Saturday evening at Batavia Downs. Tickets are still available for the event.
When Mickey Charters was pursuing her bachelor’s at Brockport State College, a professor said something she never forgot: you give back to the community.
“That always stuck with me. As a child or in high school I never volunteered, but in college, yes. Once you give back, it’s so easy, it’s a flow you just go along with it,” she said during an interview with The Batavian. “It started out with that, working with people with dementia.”
Charters, who lived in Brockport before moving to Bergen 24 years ago, has certainly latched onto that ideology. Describing herself as a “late bloomer,” she earned her degree in therapeutic recreation one class at a time after her children were in high school and took her first job in a nursing home working with people with dementia.
She has since devoted her skills of calm restraint — required to do this type of compassionate endeavor — whether it was helping to take care of her uncle, working or volunteering in the field, including at Office for the Aging, Alzheimer’s Association, Crossroads House and a grassroots respite program based at Batavia First Presbyterian Church.
It is that dedicated background and ongoing community service that has earned Charters the county’s Chamber of Commerce Geneseean of the Year Award. While she feels a bit shy and humbled by the attention, Charters is finding that “it actually feels good.”
“You know, all my friends are just really, really happy, and I'm happy to see them happy,” she said. “And I know I do a lot of work for my respite program, but I don't call that work. I just call it the love for people. That's how I enjoy that.”
It may not be a surprise that Charters is an animal lover, citing the beloved creatures — especially dogs and cats — for keeping her grounded. “I love taking care of them,” she said, as one answer to what she likes to do for fun. Dog-sitting happened to include the white Pyrenees in her charge this particular day. Add to that going for drives and weekend jaunts with husband Jamie, who is the other half of what she feels is still a “newlywed” couple.
They met at Crossroads House, where Jamie had been volunteering. Charters was volunteering for Visiting Nurses Association and followed a woman who went to Crossroads as the next chapter of her journey. The nonprofit’s founder, Kathy Panepento, asked Charters if she’d like to be a regular at the house, and she accepted.
To this day, she and Jamie have a “date night,” volunteering there on Saturdays, visiting with residents, reading to them, combing their hair, polishing their nails, and chatting with family members.
“I would probably say, make them feel special. They're getting ready for their next journey,” she said. “We want them to look nice. We want them to smell nice. We want them to feel comfortable.”
They’ve been having that traditional date for at least 13 years and were married nine years ago.
What keeps you going when encountering people going through challenging times as dementia, Alzheimer’s and facing that next chapter?
“Most definitely my faith. I think you have to have some type of faith, whether it’s God or out in the woods. You have to have something,” she said. “You can’t just go from one person passing away to another person passing away. You have to clear your mind. I think you have to do that. But you can clear it any way that makes you comfortable. Some people like to just walk out in the woods. I like to do that in the spring and summer. I don’t like to do it during the winter … I just, I’ll sit and not really meditate, but I can just think, as in meditation, to clear my mind.”
As for the respite program, the one she operates is one of four in Genesee County, with others at St. James Episcopal Church in Batavia and at sites in Corfu and Le Roy. The program offers caregivers an opportunity to take a break while their loved ones are cared for by trained volunteers from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. once a month.
The routine includes social time with coffee, tea, juice and cookies; a craft; a hot meal for lunch; an exercise session; a game of Bingo; and a music sing-a-long. Charters aims to keep it routine so as not to disrupt the pattern for guest attendees. They need to be mobile and able to use a restroom, and volunteers do not administer medications, she said.
Yes, even while talking about this award, Charters wanted to promote this program. She and others hope to spread the word and help more caregivers to get a break in their own routines to go shopping, run errands, make doctor appointments and take care of things they may not be able to otherwise.
Aside from that positive aspect, Charters is also happy to share that this program “costs nothing” to participants. And she has a whopping 16 volunteers ready and able to be there when needed.
Why has this population drawn you in?
“They are people too, and a lot of people didn’t know how to communicate with them,” she said. “And you just had to have patience and perseverance with them and shoe that you are the kind person and help them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it didn’t, but it was easy to change their thought process because it goes so fast, and they know that you’re a kind person, inside their heart, they know.”
So does Genesee County.
For more information about the respite program, call 585-343-0505.
