The Retired Senior Volunteer Patrol (RSVP) has a outstanding "You Are Not Alone" program here in Rancho Bernardo. It is called the YANA program and a daily team of two RSVP members in uniform call on elderly residents, to check their welfare and provide a little small talk. There is no charge for this service. They don’t deliver meals, they don’t transport people -- they just provide the most wonderful thing in the world to lonely people -- human contact. For some of our residents it is the only people the shut-ins talk to all day or, perhaps, all week.

Currently RSVP calls on 27 folks: seventeen women, four men and three couples.

Some are called on six days a week, Monday through Saturday (RSVP doesn’t work on Sunday), some once, twice or three times a week. Over 31,000 volunteer hours were spent visiting YANAs since the beginning of RSVP in 1992.

Some visits are conducted at the screen door; others invite the team inside, whichever the YANA prefers. If the YANA plans to be out of the house during the scheduled visit, there is a way to let RSVP know this, so they will not be concerned or call for emergency help.

A few years ago one of their ladies attained her 100^th birthday and it was a momentous occasion with press releases, balloons and a cake. Our most senior person will be 97 later this year: however there are no age restrictions. Needy people of all ages are considered. Some are temporary, some recuperating from surgery and all of them needing human contact.

A team calls on prospective YANAs and together they decide which days to schedule calls and a two-hour time window. The team also provides an emergency form to be placed on the refrigerator, which is the first thing paramedics check for if called to a home. They also have information on phones for the hard-of-hearing, which the phone company provides at no charge and other services available in the area.

RSVP has found YANAs who have fallen to the floor several times, unable to get themselves up, and have called their emergency contacts or for help from the paramedics.

If you know someone who is alone and shut-in, who might be interested in this "You Are Not Alone" program, call R.S.V.P. at the Rancho Bernardo Storefront, 858-538-8146, with the information.

All RSVP members have had a background check by the SDPD, similar to a sworn officer.