NI I "IrZ NAM I-1
H F LO ES
A MAN
FO R ALL
SEASONS
Ron Elkus visits a Borman Hall resident.
FROM JARC
TO THE
ELDERLY,
EZ 0 14 ELKUS
PUTS HIS
HEART IlS11r0
VOLUNTE ER
WORK.
ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
Assistant Editor
\ 66 FRIDAY, MAY 22, 1992
S
ome of Ron Elkus' ac-
quaintances make people
queasy.
"I would go," they say when
Mr. Elkus asks them to volun-
teer. "But I just don't feel com-
fortable with those JARC
residents."
Or maybe it's the senior citi-
zens Mr. Elkus, 32, visits. They
make some people uncomfort-
able, too.
Ron Elkus is perplexed.
"It doesn't make sense," he
says. Whether it's the senior cit-
izens, the JARC residents, or
the homeless men and women
Mr. Elkus regularly helps serve
in soup kitchens, "people are
people," he says. "They're just
like you and me."
Mr. Elkus' interest in volun-
teer work began years ago. He
was constantly being asked for
money, he says, "but I didn't
know where it went." So instead
of simply handing a few dollars
to the Home for Aged or to
JARC, the Jewish Association
for Residential Care, he decid-
ed to go to the organizations and
offer his services.
Among his first stops were
JARC and Sinai Hospital and
the Home for Aged — places
where he continues to volunteer
to this day.
But it was more than just cu-
riosity about where his money
went that drove Ron Elkus.
"I think it's important to give
back to society," he says. "So
many of us are really fortunate:
we can walk and talk and see
and make a living."
Each year, Mr. Elkus serves
as project leader of a hayride,
which includes food, a sing-
along and a square dance, for
JARC residents. The first
hayride he coordinated through
the Jewish Federation. The sec-
ond two were planned through
Volunteer Impact, a clearing-
house that matches volunteers
and charitable causes.
"He epitomizes everything
that we wish we would see in
young people in the communi-
ty," said Joyce Keller, executive
director of JARC. "He is totally
interested in and cares for oth-
ers. He's always doing things to
benefit the community."
The JARC hayride is Mr.
Elkus' first fall project. Anoth-
er is Borman Hall, where he vis-
its seniors each Thanksgiving.
It can be difficult, he admits,
to get past the smell that clings
to the walls of homes for the el-
derly. But he enjoys speaking
with the residents.
"They have so many stories
and so much history to tell —
especially the Holocaust sur-
vivors, and soon there won't be
many more of them," he says.
Often, the men and women
at seniors' homes are simply
lonely. Mr. Elkus breaks the ice
by bringing- along a photo album
and showing photos of his
friends and family.
He hopes to start a program
that would pair younger men
and women with the seniors, a
sort of Big Brother program for
the elderly.
Mr. Elkus visited someone
else frequently shunned by so-
ciety: a man with AIDS. A na-
tive Detroiter, the man last year
returned home to die. He had
little family remaining and so
went to a senior citizens' resi-
dence in the inner city. He was
the only Jew there.
"The first time I went to see,
him I was nervous," Mr. E1kr
says. "I remember he would just
sit and stare and I wondered,
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