Lighting Up Seniors’ Lives Is Her Goal

Elizabeth Carrigan knew she would one day devote her life to the elderly. As a child, she yearned to reach out and touch elderly strangers she would see resting at bus stops.

In her career as a mortgage banker, she had a stream of elderly customers who sought her out just because she was a good listener. And as a daughter, she saw how visits to her parents and in-laws in hospitals and nursing facilities enriched those relationships and even those with perfect strangers.

“I would just go around and visit others too. I found that magic happened when I did that,” she said.

Today, the 57-year-old Northridge resident is the executive director and founder of Van Nuys-based Light Heart Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to easing the isolation of seniors living in retirement and nursing homes.

“[The elderly] are veterans of life, and they have a lot to share,” Carrigan said.

The Light Heart Foundation has more than 60 trained volunteers who fan out at least an hour a week to meet, give a hug and listen to seniors living in homes throughout the San Fernando Valley and elsewhere in Los Angeles.

As medicine extends our lives and as baby boomers gray, more and more seniors are living in nursing homes. Experts estimate that only 20% of those living in nursing homes receive regular visits from loved ones or friends.

The reasons are many: Some have outlived their loved ones, and caregivers are caring for elderly parents, raising young families and trying to manage careers. Consequently, some seniors are dying of loneliness, experts say.

It was the 1994 Northridge earthquake that created the impetus for Carrigan to try to do what little she could to change that.

Her home in Sherman Oaks had been badly damaged and was under extensive repair.

So Carrigan and her husband, Gene, lived on borrowed property in a motor home for 18 months on a residential street in Sherman Oaks. To lift her spirits, Carrigan planted a garden on the lot. It became ground zero for healing as people throughout the neighborhood came to see the harvest and to talk.

“Elderly people would come by and chat and tell their story,” she said. “I would talk to them about what they could do to get through these times. . . . The more I did this, the more I realized that this was something I needed to make real.”

Eventually, Carrigan started visiting neighbors’ homes. Soon, she received requests to visit strangers.

“People need to have interaction, human touch, encouragement and understanding,” Carrigan said. “I knew I could [help provide this], and I did.”

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In 1996, Carrigan founded the Light Heart Foundation, so named because Carrigan said she believes visits “rekindle the flames of life” in both visitor and senior.

The organization also provides outreach to families with information forums, lobbies to establish May 23 as National Elder Recognition Day and coordinates a major gift drive each holiday season.

Last year, the organization received, wrapped and delivered 900 holiday gifts--such as scarves, radios, leisure suits and magnifying glasses--to the otherwise empty-handed.

Carrigan knows the power of a visit. She likes to tell the story of Harold, a 76-year-old writer who lived in a retirement community in Encino.

Nearly blind and no longer able to use his fingers, Harold was depressed and frustrated that he could no longer write. Carrigan brought him a tape recorder and encouraged him to dictate his thoughts. Within a few years, the man had his recordings transcribed and published a book.

“His personality totally shifted,” she said. “When you don’t water a plant, it withers away and dies.”

And then there is Ellie, who received her driver’s license at 70 years old after three years of encouragement from Carrigan.

And Gene, who Carrigan has been visiting for 15 years at the Beverly Health & Rehabilitation Center in Sherman Oaks. During a visit last week, the two talked about what Halloween costumes to wear this year.

Carrigan hopes that the Light Heart Foundation can grow into a national organization.

But for now, she’s working on getting more volunteer visitors to the estimated 2,500 facilities in Los Angeles County by pairing businesses to retirement homes and working with the Los Angeles Unified School District to encourage visits by schoolchildren.

“People need to play the piano or tell a story, do a magic trick or just [visit] once a month,” she said. “It will make such a difference in the lives of the elderly and in their own lives too.”

For more information, contact the Light Heart Foundation at (818) 375-5031.

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Personal Best is a weekly profile of an ordinary person who does extraordinary things. Please send suggestions on prospective candidates to Personal Best, Los Angeles Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311. Or fax them to (818) 772-3338. Or e-mail them to valley.news@latimes.com.