Leslie Schultz, founder of SOAR, a Frederick group that help seniors with necessary tasks, and her grandmother.

Story originally published in the February 3, 2015 edition of The Frederick News-Post by Stan Goldberg.

SOAR helps seniors

An elderly Frederick woman suffering from cancer needed some help in early January. She got in touch with representatives of SOAR, a new group in Frederick County that tries to aid seniors in need.

The woman was scheduled to go to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for her cancer treatments, and needed financial help for transportation to get there.

Within two days, volunteers from SOAR, which stands for Supporting Older Adults through Resources, paid for someone to take her to her appointment and back.

She is the first person that SOAR has helped this year, but she will not be the last.

“I’d like to touch 500 people by the end of the year,” said Leslie Schultz, founder of the group. “Our goal is to meet the unmet essential needs of seniors,”

“We’re looking for people who have fallen through the cracks,” said Beth Montgomery, one of the seven members on the board of the nonprofit organization.

Schultz said the idea is not just to give people money, but to work with local businesses and organizations to help seniors in need.

“These people have worked their whole lives or served their country and now it has become a challenge for them to choose between food and prescription drugs,” she said

Help for these seniors could involve talking with a local pharmacy or grocery store to help pay for medicine or food. Help from SOAR could also mean connecting seniors with organizations that can help them out.

This year SOAR volunteers plan to concentrate on four areas — transportation, medication, home support and food.

For instance, if a person needs to have a ramp put in their house, SOAR volunteers would try to get in touch with a contractor who could do the work.

Schultz currently works with the Frederick Memorial Hospital’s Home Health Service and has been involved with seniors for 20 years in various capacities. She said has become aware that there is a certain segment of the senior community that cannot afford basic needs.

“I’ve had an affinity for seniors my entire life,” she said. “When I was young my grandmother took me to nursing homes to visit friends or people that did not have family. I’ve always loved older people.”

She said one reason she is doing it is to honor her grandmother, who died penniless in a nursing home.

Schultz founded SOAR in September of 2013 and has had two fundraisers. With the funds raised the first year, she gave $5,000 to the Friends of the Meals on Wheels. In 2014, the group raised $20,000 and the group is just now starting to accept applications for assistance.

In order to qualify for aid from SOAR, a person must be 55 or older and live in Frederick County. An individual cannot earn more than $2,100 a month or a couple more than $2,500.

Everything will be kept confidential. Arrangements can be done over the phone or through the Internet. A family member or friend can ask for help for a senior.

“Seniors don’t like to ask for help,” Schultz said. “They are very prideful. We want to make this dignified.”

There is no charge for the service. All SOAR members donate their time.

SOAR plans to hold a kickoff event on Feb. 25 at the FMH Crestwood Conference Center to meet with organizations and businesses in the community that serve seniors

Schultz said that Whitesell Pharmacy in Frederick has already agreed to partner with SOAR.

According to Schultz, Frederick County’s population of people over the age of 60 grew by 47 percent from 2000 to 2010. By 2030 it is expected to more than double to about 77,000 people.

“Frederick is unique,” she said. “Seniors in other counties might move to Florida. In Frederick they won’t want to move.”

From left, brothers Tim and Chris Goldzwig discuss the support the two veterans received in the form of housing and a vehicle. The two served during the early 1970s, Tim in the Army and Chris in the Air Force.

Staff photo by Graham Cullen, Frederick News Post

Story originally published in the March 19, 2016 edition of The Frederick News Post by Sylvia Carignan.

Organization for older adults helps brothers in arms find housing in Brunswick

About 40 years after serving in the armed forces, brothers Chris and Tim Goldzwig were living in a dilapidated log cabin in Keymar that had no running water and was infested with rats.

“It was hard living,” said Tim, 64, who was in the Army’s Special Forces.

They both served for a few years in the early 1970s. Chris, 56, was in the Air Force.

In 2000, Chris had a brain aneurysm that took away his memory and his ability to walk.

“I didn’t know my father had passed,” Chris said, sitting beside his older brother in the lobby of an apartment building in Brunswick.

Tim had a successful business in home waterproofing until his disabilities, including a shoulder injury, got the best of him.

“I was a $300,000-a-year guy, and lost it all,” Tim said.

Chris has learned to walk again since his brain injury but still suffers from short-term memory loss. Thanks to the generosity of a Frederick organization, he and his brother are getting the medical care, housing and transportation they need.

About two months ago, an organization called Supporting Older Adults through Resources, Inc. got the Goldzwig brothers’ application for a car.

Leslie Schultz is founder and president of Supporting Older Adults through Resources. The organization was formed in 2013 and started serving seniors in 2015.

Over the past year, they have served more than 270 seniors, Schultz said, with a broader range of needs than they expected.

“We thought it was going to be medication, in-home health, transportation, but in essence, it is soup to nuts,” she said.

Even so, the Goldzwigs’ application for a car was slightly unusual. The organization used a Community Foundation of Frederick County grant to help buy them a car they could use to get to their doctors’ appointments.

The brothers received the car last August. Over Thanksgiving, Schultz went to their Keymar home to deliver a turkey dinner. She saw how they were living, and started talking to them about moving them into better housing.

Their initial application was denied because of their credit.

“When you lose your health, then you lose your credit,” Tim said.

Schultz and her organization got them pots and pans and helped them move to Brunswick, into Volunteers for America housing. Volunteers for America is a non-profit that assists primarily low-income people find affordable housing and provide other assistance.

“I wrote a letter on their behalf, and I guaranteed the rent,” she said.

The brothers got side-by-side apartment units and moved in about two months ago.

“She literally saved our lives,” Tim said.

Supporting Older Adults through Resources is run by volunteers during their lunch breaks, evenings and weekends.

They are preparing to deliver about 50 Easter dinners to seniors around the county who don’t have family or are unable to cook.

Dramatic sky and storm. Lightning hit the house. Power of nature concept.

“I really don’t know what we would have done without their help.”

“Every time I talk about her I want to cry,” Sandra Lowe says. The “her” she refers to is SOAR Founder and President Leslie Schultz. “Without Leslie, SOAR and our neighbors, I don’t know how we would have done it.”

During a powerful storm in October 2016, a power line was knocked out near the home of Sandra Lowe and her partner, Richard Wetzel. As a result, the electrical wiring and a large piece of their log cabin, located near Jefferson, were casualties as well. They were also living there with no running water. Much to their dismay, they were told the damage was beyond repair.

“With our limited resources, we didn’t have much choice,” Sandra recalled. “Thankfully, we had such nice neighbors. They let us use their generator and provided the necessary fuel, and they wouldn’t take anything for it.” Because the couple rely solely on Richard’s Social Security benefits, they weren’t in any position to pack up and move to another location.

Even with that chunk of the house missing, the sad reality was they had to stay. That generator became their lifeline, the only source to keep their refrigerator running to store perishable foods to ensure they were safe for consumption. One light and the TV were powered by the generator also.

Just when these dire living conditions were truly taking a toll on them, they received a call right before Thanksgiving from a SOAR volunteer saying their application had been received and SOAR would be delivering a holiday meal to the couple.

Sandra’s first question: “What application?” They hadn’t submitted an application for relief, but were incredibly grateful to the person who had done so on their behalf. Upon seeing the conditions of their situation, SOAR volunteers immediately made arrangements for the couple to stay at a hotel while taking measures to acquire temporary space for them at a federally subsidized apartment in Brunswick. SOAR paid the security deposit and the first two months’ rent.

Due to Richard’s medical conditions, SOAR also provided medical transport and a personal caregiver while Sandra and Richard stayed at the hotel. Additionally, the organization hired movers to transport their limited belongings, and supplemented those possessions with donated furniture, including a remote-operated hospital bed for Richard. SOAR also made sure the couple’s refrigerator and pantry were well stocked with food items.

When asked what the organization means to her, Sandra says “I really don’t know what we would have done without their help.” Richard chimes in, “We may have been homeless.” As for that application, Sandra says “It’s a mystery to me, but good things happen out of the blue. The help we got from SOAR is one of those things. We didn’t know what to do, and then along came Leslie. She’s our angel.”

Story originally published in the Fall 2020 edition of the Frederick County Guide by Gina Galucci-White.

Nonprofit helps older adults with financial needs

When days get tough, Leslie Schultz, founder and president of Supporting Older Adults through Resources Inc. (SOAR) thinks of one particular woman.

She could not afford food and wasn’t eating, and so she called SOAR for help.

SOAR was able to provide her with food and several other needs during an 18-month period.

One day, a funeral director called Schultz to tell her the woman had died at a local nursing home, and the only phone number found in her contact list was for SOAR.

“She knew that she had someone in her final days,” Schultz recalled. “That story has resonated with me since it happened. I reflect on that often. When there are days when you get frustrated and you are like, ‘How can this all work?’ You reflect on that story and similar ones like it. You know you make a difference in someone’s life and, in many instances, it is in the final days, so that has great meaning.”

Schultz has been helping older adults since 2000, working in both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors.

“I saw seniors that had the money to obtain services and pay for the things that they needed and I saw seniors that didn’t have the resources and there was really nowhere to turn,” she said. “Nobody to help you pay a utility bill or pay some additional medical bills or understand your particular situation. There was no one doing that.”

After SOAR’s founding in 2013, the nonprofit took about 18 months to generate funds and infrastructure before taking its first clients in 2015. Basic requirements for aid include that clients must be at least 65 years old, live in Frederick County and have an income of less than $2,100 per month.

Requests to SOAR can run the gamut from repairing a mailbox to helping to find a home for a homeless senior. Once a need is met, the nonprofit will often help the senior in other areas as well. There are five main areas where they see a large number of requests: food, housing, medication, transportation and medical equipment.

The nonprofit helps an average of 30 people each month.

“The average applicant that we get makes about $900 a month and that doesn’t go very far in Frederick County,” Schultz said.

About 75 percent of SOAR’s clients are from professional referrals including doctors, social workers, nurses, therapists and hospice workers. The rest are self-referrals, but anyone may request help for an older adult.

Schultz notes the nonprofit has grown so quickly because the demand was there.

Success Stories