Helping seniors stay in their homes
Interfaith Caregivers has new staff and is facing some funding cuts

The staff at Interfaith Caregivers took time to pose for a staff photo inside the Interfaith Caregivers office on Blue Earth’s Main Street. Left to right are Robin Stenzel (new caregiver coordinator), Dan Woodring (director), Renee Nagel (new caregiver coordinator) and Sara Obermeyer (caregiver consultant).
An organization that has been helping Faribault County senior citizens for nearly 30 years is once again facing some financial issues.
Interfaith Caregivers learned recently that they are having 40 percent of their state funding cut this year. The decrease means Interfaith Caregivers will not be able to help out as much as they have in the past.
“We are not taking on any more new clients for our Homemaker and Chore Service at this point,” Dan Woodring, the executive director of Interfaith Caregivers says. “We will try to do as much as we can for now.”
What does Interfaith Caregivers do? Their goal is to help older people stay in their homes. They do this by offering a Homemaker and Chore Services program.
“We have eight cleaners who go into the seniors’ homes and do routine chores and cleaning,” Woodring says. It is also a good chance just to check on the senior and see how they are doing and whether they need any attention.
Basically they do house cleaning and laundry and other chores as needed. They do not do personal care, like bathing, or dispense medicines.
Interfaith Caregivers also does a respite program. It is a Caregiver Support program to help caregivers and give them the support they need. That is also where staff goes into the home and gives the senior citizen’s caretaker a break for an hour and a half, to go run errands or just stepping away for some personal time.
Woodring says that service has grown and they now clock around 20 hours per week of respite care.
In the past, Interfaith Caregivers has also had programs for caretakers.
Another program they offer is giving seniors rides to appointments, usually medical appointments. Some trips are local but others are to the Twin Cities, Mankato and Rochester. The drivers are all volunteers, and there are a lot of them, more than 24 around the county. But, they could aways use more, Woodring says. Sometimes they don’t have a driver available and the senior citizen has to reschedule the appointment or find another way to get to the appointment.
“We do offer the drivers a 30 cent per mile reimbursement, but most of them don’t accept it,” Woodring says. “Maybe just on some longer trips.”
Since the drivers are all volunteers, that program will not be as affected by the decrease in funding as the other programs.
Another program they offer also will not be affected as much. Interfaith Caregivers offers the Alert Link program for seniors. That is when the senior can press a button for help in an emergency, if they cannot get to a phone.
The installation using a cell phone based system has become more important as fewer people have landlines.
“We took that program over from UHD,” Woodring says. “That program’s cost is covered by fees.”
Woodring’s brother, Dave, is in charge of the Alert Link program.
Interfaith Caregivers has recently had two employees leave the organization.
Merry McGowan retired after working there for 15 years as a caregiver consultant. Cassandra Caron also is leaving the organization and has taken another job. She was an outreach care coordinator for the Homemaking and Chores Program.
Interfaith Caregivers has hired two new employees to help with the work. Robin Stenzel is working there as a caregiver consultant, and Sara Obermeyer is working as a part-time caregiver consultant.
Interfaith Caregivers started as an idea back in 1996, but it had its first day of full operation on April 16, 1997.
It was called Interfaith Caregivers – Faith in Action in Faribault County when it first started. It was later shortened to just Interfaith Caregivers.
Jean Bierly was the first director, and was one of 35 people applicants for the position.
Current director Dan Woodring started in the position on May 27, 2010, nearly 15 years ago. He took over for Helen Tesch, the former director, who had retired on April 15 of that year.
Interfaith Caregivers has had several homes over the years, from an office at the Ag Center to an empty home to its current location in the MVAC building on Main Street, a former dentist’s office.
While there have been different directors, staff and locations, their goal has remained the same. As their mission statement relates, “Our mission is to help seniors maintain independence, dignity and quality of life. We do this by coordinating volunteers for a variety of services and non-medical care.”
Woodring says they are hoping to be able to continue their services for more years. To do so, they are looking at other funding sources and are hoping for an increase in donations.
“We are continuing to help out where we can,” he said.
Anyone interested in either becoming a volunteer driver or making a donation can contact them.