It’s no secret that medical care can be prohibitively expensive in the United States. Sometimes though, people also can’t afford crucial post-care equipment, which is where the South Metro Medical Equipment Loan Closet comes in. Donna Ralston, a twenty year veteran of non-profit organizations, saw a gap that charity could fill and did so by founding an organization which has now helped hundreds of people. But it’s been challenging since opening up in 2016, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic continuing into 2022 and a forced closure for a few months when the pandemic first began. Fortunately, she wasn’t alone, as she had lots of willing help:
We have volunteers who don’t all live within the neighborhood. They drive over to help. These people are looking for ways to utilize their background, skills, and knowledge at the same time helping people even if they’re retired.
All she had to do was find a way to keep them connected.
With MightyCall and the variety of team-oriented features within the system, Ralston was able to stay connected to her group of volunteers. By being web based, and with MightyCall’s ability to connect incoming calls to cell phones, volunteers could go wherever they needed to, and closures didn’t impact them:
We do everything by volunteers. There are about 25 of us who volunteer a couple of days a month. There are people who answer the phone since MightyCall transfers phone calls to everyone’s cell phone, so we can all work from our separate locations; people who help with donations of equipment; people who update our inventory; people who help us pick up and move equipment, or do repairs.
For a non-profit that runs on values of making people’s lives easier, especially those in need, having access to an affordable communications system that is easy for use for people who may not be very technically proficient has been a key in keeping volunteers effective as the Loan Closet, as the locals call it, deals with a challenging post-COVID reality.
