MONROE COUNTY — Eighteen months after its founding, St. Joseph’s Helpers is expanding.
The local nonprofit will soon be in Kentucky and other parts of Michigan.
It has also just started a disaster program.
Tony Rosati, a retired engineer, founded St. Joseph’s Helpers at his church, St. Mary in Rockwood, to help seniors and others needing minor home repairs such as leaky faucets, clogged drains and yard work. The work is done for free, although donations are accepted.
Other volunteers soon joined Rosati. Today, St. Joseph’s Helpers has 160 volunteers who have helped more than 1,500 clients to date.
“Monroe is probably our largest area right now. The Monroe County Opportunity Program gave us a $2,500 grant this year,” Rosati said. “We are located in seven counties in southeastern Michigan, including Monroe, and will open our first satellite office in Lexington, Kentucky, in late June. Someone in Kentucky saw an article about us. He retired from teaching at the high school and asked if he could open a branch there. I met him in April and we did the legal stuff together.”
The Kentucky location already has five volunteers.
A call last year from a woman in need in St. Louis, Missouri, inspired Rosati and his board to think nationally.
“Our dream is to want to be a national organization, to serve everyone in need,” Rosati said.
St. Joseph’s Helpers’ largest initiative of 2024 is a disaster relief program. The organization purchases a $1,000 portable ramp each week.
“There is such a great need for ramps. We want to do 34 this calendar year. That’s a pretty aggressive prospect. Most organizations stopped providing them,” Rosati said. “We did our first one in Monroe. It made such a difference for the couple to get in and out of their home.”
The aluminum ramps are 10 feet long and serve a variety of customers.
Previous coverage: Helping those in need: St. Joseph’s Helpers serves area seniors and veterans
“People in wheelchairs and people who are homebound and have not been able to find or afford one. Some come out of rehab. There are elderly people who can no longer take three or four steps,” said Rosati. “They need it all, and a thousand dollars is out of most people’s price range.”
Once a recipient no longer needs the ramp or has passed away, Rosati hopes the ramp will be returned to St. Joseph’s Helpers.
“We can pick them up and take them to the next person on the list,” he said.
Recently, St. Joseph’s Helpers also simplified its website, allowing clients to get help more quickly. In the past, staff paired a person in need with a volunteer. Now volunteers can go online and find customers where they want to help. All volunteers must pass a background check.
“The enormous number of calls made it an impossible task to connect volunteers and customers. Now volunteers can log in, view open cases and see what needs to be done,” said Rosati. “It has streamlined the whole process.”
Volunteers now also work from several satellite offices, including the main location in Taylor.
“Four volunteers come from the Monroe office. We want to work together with the churches in which we are active. Give us an area of 10 x 10,” he said.
The main customer need remains bathroom handles. Porch railings are the second most requested service.
“The need is still great,” says Rosati.
Other customers call about plumbing emergencies and problems with waste disposal and sump pumps.
“Most volunteers have the same basic skills as handyman. They can install a handle, repair a porch, replace wood porch planks,” Rosati said. ‘Many calls from people are beyond our capabilities, such as oven work. There are programs available, but they are not immediately available. We’ve worked with Sieb Plumbing (and others), who install furnace igniters at a fraction of the cost. We did a few dozen in the winter for people who didn’t have heating. We do the same with various plumbing and electrical partners.”
Clients can be of any age and do not have to meet income requirements.
“We’ve had younger people. We had a young lady, a single mother. She needed help putting together a crib,” Rosati said. “The older population needs more help, but we will still help anyone who calls us. There are no income-related criteria. We have withdrawn from subsidies with income requirements. We do not define need solely based on income.”
St. Joseph’s Helpers continues to visit a different church each weekend to find volunteers and people in need and to accept donations. Those in need can also call the office or register online. Area organizations and churches continue to refer clients and support the ministry.
Subscribe now: For the latest local developments, breaking news and high school sports content.
“A group from Ava Marie Radio, a Catholic radio station, heard about us and gave us a commercial every day for free,” Roasati said. “You just never know where the next connection is going to come from. We’re getting more and more calls and we’re getting the word out.”
For more information, visit sjhelpers.org or St Joseph’s Helpers on Facebook. The office can be reached at 313-900-5232 or SJH@SJHelpers.org.
— Contact reporter Suzanne Nolan Wisler at swisler@monroenews.com.
This article originally appeared in The Monroe News: St. Joseph’s Helpers added disaster program and expanded to Kentucky
