Community Stories

Volunteer of the Month: Juan Ramos

May 31, 2022

A male volunteer in a hat and glasses holds up a Food for Hope T-shirt.

Congratulations to Juan Ramos for being recognized as Heart2Heart’s Volunteer of the Month for May 2022! 

Juan gives his time in two crucial Heart2Heart outreaches every week. To start, he leads a Sunday morning worship service at a care center. He also began delivering meals to two seniors living in their homes as Heart2Heart launched its Food for Hope program last week.

Juan’s recent retirement has allowed him to volunteer more. However, his ministry at the Meridian at Lantana has been ongoing and vital.

“The residents still need to be encouraged. They get a lot of encouragement from the reading of the Word,” he said. 

Every Sunday at 9:30 a.m., Juan leads a gathering of about 10 people at the care center. He selects one chapter from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament to read. Periodically, they share in communion as well. 

At their request, Juan sets up a little boom box, passes out song sheets, and they sing together. 

“I’m not a singer, so I need a little music to help out,” he explained. 

They close the meeting in prayer. The service is open to anyone in the care center, and they often have a visitor or two, outside of the regular attendees. 

“They can’t drive to church; someone would have to take them,” Juan explained. “So they have the service there.”

Juan drives about 55 minutes to the care center in Lantana every Sunday. The meeting concludes with enough time for him to drive back into Broward County for the service at his own church.  

The Sunday morning ministry to care center residents is worth the drive, Juan explained. 

“To be honest, they are the forgotten people of the church,” he said. “They don’t have someone to talk to them or read Scriptures.”

A few weeks ago, Juan began leading a Bible study at a different care center, at Pacifica Senior Living Forest Trace in Lauderhill. 

Juan discovered Heart2Heart through his church, Christ The Rock Community Church in Cooper City. His first involvement was volunteering at the Alexander ‘Sandy’ Nininger State Veterans’ Nursing Home in Pembroke Pines. Once every other week, he would visit to play bingo and volleyball and talk to the veterans individually. 

“That was good; I enjoyed it very much,” Juan said. “They have a lot of history, even all the way back to World War 2.” 

Unfortunately, the pandemic put an abrupt stop to those visits, and they haven’t resumed. Juan finds time for his new volunteering ventures in between side jobs he still does for friends and acquaintances and caring for his wife, who is disabled. 

He enjoys giving back to the community. 

“It’s fulfilling,” Juan said, adding with a laugh: “Watching TV is not that fun anymore.”

We thank Juan for faithfully delivering food and providing spiritual nourishment to the aging community!

Join the Team!

Becoming a Heart2Heart volunteer means that you are dedicated to serving the aging community. It means you want to connect in a meaningful way to a specific individual or to several people. It means you are committed to a consistent amount of time per month – whether that’s several hours a week or just a few hours per month.

Heart2Heart volunteers must be background checked and trained. Our training can be completed from your home on your computer or device, through the online Volunteer Portal. We run fingerprints in our office in Fort Lauderdale, and you can schedule an appointment with us after you finish the training.

The first step is to create an account on our Volunteer Portal. To get started, click here!

Read more …

Big Ideas and Small Acts of Kindness

Big Ideas and Small Acts of Kindness

We were inspired by the story of Rashaad Green, an inspirational student we met at a college volunteer fair. At 22 years old, he is helping homeless people, including a 64-year-old senior, and he’s started a club that will bring art therapy to seniors. He dreams of one day curing cancer and opening a permanent and temporary housing facility for the homeless.

The Glamorous Stories of a 1940s Broadway Dancer

The Glamorous Stories of a 1940s Broadway Dancer

Lillian Flowers is 98. She lives alone in Fort Lauderdale.

She used to dance on Broadway.

While volunteer Steve Retford is helping her get services she needs, he gets a front row seat to glamorous stories from Broadway, filled with famous theater producers, celebrities (she dated Dean Martin briefly), and traveling through a life of show biz.

We extended his front row seat so you can listen to Lillian’s stories too.

Heart2Heart Welcomes New Staff — in a New Space!

Heart2Heart Welcomes New Staff — in a New Space!

In case you haven’t met them in person yet, we introduced the new additions to our team:

– Rosevel “Rosie” Castro, outreach coordinator
– Peighton Stone, dietician and intern with us from Nova Southeastern University for eight weeks

Some of our team got new roles, too. Check out all the details about that — and our new office!