AARP Recognizes Kansas Caregivers -- Presents Portrait of Care to Wichita Woman

 

AARP is honoring the 40 million Americans – more than 345,000 from Kansas – who help older parents, grandparents, spouses and other loved ones live independently at home, where they want to be.  The unpaid care they provide – managing medications, cooking meals, driving to appointments, performing complex medical tasks and more – is valued at about $4.1 billion annually in Kansas alone.

Charity Chrans, from Wichita, is one of these unsung heroes.  She says about caring for her grandmother, Joan, “She is my best friend and I love her with all my heart. I felt like it was my duty to take care of her.”

AARP Kansas is recognizing Charity with a Portrait of Care, an artist’s painting of her and her grandmother.  Randomly selected through AARP’s storytelling initiative, I Heart Caregivers (aarp.org/iheartcaregivers), Charity is one of 53 family caregivers from every state, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands receiving a hand-painted portrait.  Thousands have shared their stories on the site.

Charity and her grandmother, Joan Mies, along with Charity's aunt, Sharon Billups, were presented with the Portrait of Care on Saturday, December 19, 2015 during the 3:00 K-State men's basketball game at the Intrust Bank Arena.

Charity helps take care of her grandmother who suffered a heart attack and stroke several years ago. Charity worked with her grandmother, helping her do exercises and therapy every day so that she could move from a wheelchair to a walker. Charity, who lives about 30 minutes from her grandmother, drives to her house every morning and helps her with meals, exercises, house cleaning and fixing her hair.

“Family caregivers are the backbone of our care system, serving a crucial role in helping older Kansans and other loved ones remain in their homes and communities,” said AARP Kansas Director Maren Turner. “That’s why AARP is fighting for commonsense solutions to help make their responsibilities a little bit easier.”

“One of those solutions is the CARE Act (Caregiver, Advise, Record, Enable) which we hope to get passed in the 2016 legislative session. The CARE Act would support caregivers when their loved ones go into the hospital and as they transition home by providing training on medical tasks the caregiver will need to perform once their loved one returns home.”

AARP has also been fighting for family caregivers on Capitol Hill and thanks Representative Mike Pompeo (R) for his leadership and support of family caregivers through his co-sponsorship of the RAISE Act (Recognize, Assist, Include, Support, and Engage Family Caregivers) H.R. 3099, that would require the development of a national strategy to recognize and support family caregivers. The RAISE Act passed the Senate unanimously last week, and AARP thanks Senators Jerry Moran (R) and Pat Roberts (R) for their support and Senator Roberts for his support in the HELP Committee.

Congressman Pompeo, along with Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins (R) is also a member of the ACT (Assisting Caregivers Today) Caucus which will bring greater visibility to the value of and need to support family caregivers.

“Family caregiving is really an issue that impacts us all,” Turner concluded. “It’s not a Democrat issue. It’s not a Republican issue. It’s a family issue.”

To read family caregivers’ stories from Kansas, visit www.iheartcaregivers.org.

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