Volunteers Give Advocacy a Boost

By Thomas Korosec

Eva Bonilla fought back tears as she told legislators about her experience caring for her father and daughter. It was intimidating to tell her story to the Texas House Public Health Committee, she recalled.

“There’s a group of people looking at you. You’re not a professional who’s used to doing this,” she said of her 2014 appearance before the panel.

Still, the 68-year-old tour company owner from Fort Worth was able to describe her difficulty in keeping up with the medical needs of her father, who suffered from several illnesses, and her daughter, who was battling depression. She was testifying for AARP Texas in favor of a measure, the Caregiver Advise, Record, Enable (CARE) Act, aimed at ensuring family caregivers know how to perform the follow-up tasks a patient will need at home following hospitalization.

“You don’t know what to do or even what to ask when they get out of the hospital,” Bonilla said, summing up the crux of her testimony. “I have a college education, but I didn’t have the information or training to be a caregiver.”

Volunteers like Bonilla are essential to the mission of AARP Texas, especially during the hectic few months every other year when the Legislature is in session, said Rob Schneider, manager of outreach and advocacy.

Their volunteering takes a variety of forms. They present testimony, walk the halls and talk to their representatives, or write, call and email legislators in support of AARP Texas’ priorities.

Real people, real issues
“It’s important for our elected officials, whether on the state, local or national level, to see the face of the issues through our volunteers,” Schneider said. “They’re in a good position to articulate those issues because so many of them have experienced the impact on their quality of life.”

It’s powerful, Schneider said, because “it comes from people who live in the moment and have that experience.”

Volunteers who make the trip to Austin number “in the dozens,” while the ranks of email writers are “in the thousands and tens of thousands,” Schneider said. They get interested “by reading about our efforts in the Bulletin, or they’re on our email list.”

Bonilla, who has been active in her neighborhood and advocates for AARP in Fort Worth, said she was at a volunteer training session in Austin when it was suggested she might want to testify on her caregiver experiences. Her story was particularly powerful because she was thrust into caregiving after her mother died in a fire that broke out at her parents’ house.

“I needed to testify on behalf of all those people who are in the same boat as I am,” she said.

The CARE Act that Bonilla championed was approved in committee but did not become law. It is among AARP Texas’ priorities for this year’s legislative session, along with improving nursing home quality and promoting financial security in retirement by giving workers at small businesses easier access to savings plans.

Enacting consumer protections against unanticipated medical bills following visits to freestanding emergency rooms is also on the priority list.

Mike and Tricia Henry, an Austin-area couple, have been volunteering to walk the halls of the Texas Capitol for at least six sessions.

Mike, 85, who retired from an insurance business, and Tricia, 79, a retired caterer, said they get briefings from AARP staff on key issues and then attend committee hearings and visit legislators in their offices. “We’ve worked on senior health issues, payday loans, all types of important issues,” Tricia said. “AARP is such a huge organization. When we knock on their doors, they listen.”

To become an advocacy volunteer contact aarptx@aarp.org.

Thomas Korosec is a writer living in Dallas.