The Past Decade: Our First Caregiver
In May of 2015 Tom Trefethen was the first caregiver who reached out to Jack’s Caregiver Coalition for help. I remember being excited and nervous when the request came in.
We had just become an official non-profit organization in December of 2014, so in early 2015, while we knew men who were caregivers were our mission, we had nearly zero experience in actually supporting them.
Our playbook was The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. An entrepreneurial method of building a business by doing the work and learning from that tangible experience, rather than spending months on end creating a business plan and pitching it to investors.
Our website had a form that simply asked, “What is the best way we can support you?”
Tom reported that his wife Jean had suffered from a brain hemorrhage. And he had decided they must move to handicapped accessible housing. They were selling their home in Burnsville, MN and moving to Elko Newmarket, MN. They needed a fresh coat of paint and new carpet; Tom needed our help moving around the furniture.
This was work we were very comfortable with. Showing up at someone’s home and helping them around the house with projects. We were dudes, and dudes fix things, so it felt like the perfect challenge at the time.
In our early days we did quite a few projects like Tom’s. We’d show up and help folks with things like snow blowing, changing the oil in their car, yard work and the like. With each experience we’d learn a little more. I recall numerous times getting different messages from the caregiver and the caregetter. It was often the caregetter that had reached out for our help, because they could see their caregiver was completely overwhelmed. The caregiver would then diminish the need for help and would reduce the amount of work we were doing. I recall a few awkward situations that left me feeling like we needed a new game plan.
After helping Tom, he stayed connected and shared more of his struggles. Like when he got so angry he slammed his refrigerator door repeatedly until the condiments stored in the door were all over his apartment. It wasn’t long after that his wife Jean passed away.
As fixers ourselves, it was a hard realization Tom gave us. That often the most important problems caregivers have cannot be fixed.
