The 4-year-old nonprofit Seaglass Village, which helps seniors live on their own, is aiming to branch into Salem for new members. It’s reaching out to local temples for volunteers to create a sense of community and connection.

Swampscott-based Seaglass Village President Izzi Abrams, 77, of Salem, said the area suffers from a dearth of services necessary for older residents, such as rides to doctor’s appointments or friendly visits.

While visiting her son in Boca Raton, Florida, for Thanksgiving, she noticed the area was better equipped to help older adults live on their own.

“I saw so many older people walking around looking happy because it’s warm, to begin with, but [also] they have the facilities with all of their condominiums and groups and whatever to get people places. We don’t have that here in the north and we need it … because of the weather,” Abrams said.

Seaglass Village currently serves seniors in Marblehead, Nahant and Swampscott, helping them live independently at home.

It offers such things as rides to and from a doctor’s or hair appointment, home visits, food shopping, help with small household chores, light gardening, tech support and lifts to Friday night Shabbat services.

Members pay $365 a year, a dollar a day, for these services, and Seaglass Village now has 100 members as it seeks to expand into Salem.
Generous grants from the Marblehead Female Humane Society and the Essex County Women’s Foundation provide reduced-cost memberships to women who are eligible.

The organization has about 75 volunteers providing services to seniors, and both members and volunteers are welcome to attend its social and educational programs.
Seaglass Village is one of more than 350 “villages” around the country, and is a member of the Village to Village Network.

The organization is not religiously affiliated, but Abrams herself has been deeply involved in the Jewish community on the North Shore for many years. She is a past president of the Jewish Journal, and a former president of the Jewish Community Center of the North Shore, among other positions she has held within the community. Her father served as the rabbi at Temple Shalom in Salem in the 1950s.

Seaglass Village’s founding president is Heidi Sawyer Whear, who is now the organization’s vice president and works as Swampscott’s director of aging services. Abrams said it was Whear and several others, including Bob Powell, who helped start Seaglass Village to serve seniors locally.

The organization grew out of a Swampscott for All Ages Community Needs Assessment in 2019, which recommended establishing a village on the North Shore “to meet the need for coordinated, affordable aging-in-place services for older adults,” according to Seaglass Village’s website.

The report led to a steering committee in June 2020 made up of Marblehead and Swampscott residents to begin work on forming a Village, based on similar organizations elsewhere. The need for such an organization was outlined in the report, which stated that 35% of Swampscott residents will be 60 years of age and older by 2030.

“The need is to help the people as they age stay in their homes and we are there to provide services for them,” Abrams said. Seaglass Village works closely with the Swampscott Senior Center, providing some of the services it cannot, including home visits and door-to-door rides to doctor’s appointments.

Abrams said the Jewish community can help fill the need for seniors who want to attend services.

Abrams said Seaglass Village has a volunteer who drives two women to Temple Emanu-el in Marblehead every week for services. The volunteer, who is not Jewish, stays through the service with the women and takes them home.

“We are trying to build that connection of doing things for more needs, to get people more involved in the synagogues or the churches – the churches would do the same thing,” Abrams said.

Abrams, who belongs to Congregation Shirat Hayam in Swampscott, said her temple has a Shir Chesed Team that, among other things, works with older temple members and families to cope with bereavement and other needs.

“We don’t want to do the same thing they’re doing, but they don’t drive people,” Abrams said. “And unless you know someone in the temple to go to services Saturday morning, you know, and they don’t drive anymore, how are we going to get them there?”

Seaglass Village has the extra insurance for volunteers to allow drivers to get folks into the synagogue and get them comfortable once they arrive. “But we give a little more kindness than just a ride somewhere,” Abrams said. The organization is looking to the temples for volunteers and to make a better connection with them.
“Personally, I would like to see more Jewish people involved because it is an all-denominational kind of program,” Abrams said.