To navigate her apartment at La Costa Glen in Carlsbad, 89-year-old Jo Martin uses a rollator walker to move from room to room. It’s one of several mobility devices she has received from Helping Hands at La Costa Glen, a nonprofit based in the retirement village that refurbishes used medical equipment to give to other residents.
Martin said the rollator walker — with four wheels, handles, brakes and a seat to rest on — is an improvement from a more difficult to use aluminum walker that needs to be lifted to move from place to place. She uses the walker every day to maintain her social life at La Costa Glen and to fulfill her duties as her floor’s representative helping her neighbors access what they need, celebrate birthdays and share cheer around the holidays.
Devices like the walker have also helped her to remain in the independent living village longer.
“If I didn’t have them, I’d be over at GlenBrook,” Martin said, referring to the nearby skilled nursing facility.
Michael Perryman, 69, Vic Matricardi, 84, and Richie Clyne, 91, are among the 29 volunteers from the La Costa Glen Retirement Community who refurbish donated used medical equipment from walkers, wheelchairs, electric scooters and electric chairs so they can be freely given to someone in need.
(Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
For the past six years, Helping Hands volunteers who live in the retirement community have been refurbishing used medical equipment so it can be used by other residents at La Costa Glen, a 640-unit retirement community that is home to roughly 925 residents.
When a resident returns home from a hospital stay and needs medical equipment to aid their recovery, they can call Helping Hands dispatchers to find out what devices are available. Once those devices are no longer needed, the residents can donate them back to the volunteers so they can be given a new life by helping someone else.
Vic Matricardi, one of the nonprofit’s founders, said the group of 29 volunteers helps to create a recycling system to prevent equipment from ending up in the trash.
“I saw the waste — people would come back with equipment and they would throw it out,” said Matricardi, an 84-year-old retired physicist and engineer. “There was no output for it, like the nuclear industry doesn’t have a depository for its waste, but we can reuse a lot of this stuff.”
On Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023, Vic Matricardi, 84, demonstrated one of the various types of walkers the organization has received in donations and refurbished.
(Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The effort helps residents save money on devices that can be expensive to purchase new. Powered mobility scooters cost hundreds of dollars. Some high-end versions cost $1,500 or more.
Thus far, the nonprofit has given away 2,234 medical devices, such as wheelchairs, scooters, shower stools, bedside commodes, canes, crutches, walkers and more to other residents. At times when the storage garage has become too full, some of the stock has been given away to the Disabled American Veterans.
If a device someone is using in the retirement community needs new ball bearings, a battery or other repairs, dispatchers can send someone out to fix the problem at their home. The volunteers, such as Michael Perryman, 69, will even repair medical equipment that residents didn’t get from their organization.
Before retiring, Perryman worked on electromechanical systems during a 24-year Navy career, then went on to work as a software engineer for Northrop Grumman. That engineering background and training from other Helping Hands volunteers has aided him in troubleshooting broken electrical devices.
Michael Perryman works on the electrical components of a recently donated scooter.
(Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Perryman moved into La Costa Glen with his wife, Marilyn, 18 months ago. He said volunteering was a way to get involved with his neighbors.
“It’s giving back to the community,” he said. “Part of the reason we moved here in the first place is because of the community, and so you can’t keep a community going unless you volunteer and put forth an effort to help the community do better.”
Richie Clyne, 91, moved into La Costa Glen from Long Island 18 years ago to be closer to his daughter and her husband after his wife died. As a Helping Hands volunteer who organizes dispatchers to answer phone calls, he said their group of volunteers also benefits by meeting new people whom they might not otherwise have connected with.
“I think it’s good for you, inside. It feels good doing good things for people,” Clyne said.
