Let’s be there for each other. There are two ways to get involved with ’88 Hearts and Hands. Choose one or both:
- Caring Committee: Support classmates in need, whether through expressions of cheer or organized local efforts (meals, rides, visits). Email us with the nature of your interest and your contact info to join the Committee.
- Advice Network: Share professional insights or practical life-experiences (“I’ve been there…”) with classmates seeking advice. This is friend-to-friend counsel vs. free professional services.
For the Advice Network, we are seeking volunteers from the Class of ’88 willing to share insights learned or gleaned from professional or personal experiences related to a variety of life issues. On a case by case basis, volunteers lend support to classmates at specific moments during the process of navigating unfamiliar terrain.
The following is a list of topic areas for which we are seeking volunteers. If you wish to volunteer, please email our co-chairs, Michelle Stowe Ong and Steve Cook, with your contact info and nature of the expertise or experience you’d like to share. You will be added to the confidential Advice Network database to be called on if there is a classmate in need. We would like to have multiple volunteers in as many categories as possible since everyone’s experience set and needs are slightly different. If you wish to discuss the network further before volunteering, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our ’88 Hearts and Hands Co-Chairs by clicking here.
Topics for which expertise is desired:
- All Medical Specialties
- Aging Parents
- Allergies, Severe and Life Threatening
- Alzheimer’s
- Bankruptcy
- Chronic Illness (e.g. HIV/AIDS, Pain, Arthritis, etc.)
- Cancers
- Crisis Assistance
- End of Life/Palliative Care
- Estate Planning
- General Medical (Questions to ask, possibly assistance locating a medical service)
- General Legal (Questions to ask, possibly assistance locating a legal service)
- Grief
- Loss of Child, Parent, Sibling, Spouse or Partner
- Raising children after the loss of a spouse
- LGBTQ Issues
- Marital Issues
- Mental Health (including navigating depression, anxiety etc.)
- Pediatrics
- Setting up a Law Practice
- Special Needs Kids (Autism, Learning Disabilities etc.)
- Sobriety/Navigating Substance Abuse (AA, Al-Anon, Rehab etc.)
- Step Parenting (learning to be one)
- Spirituality and Faith
Disclaimer
The ’88 Hearts and Hands Advice Network exists as a volunteer service for ’88s and their immediate families. Although some of our volunteers are professionals with licenses to practice, all assistance sought here is ’88 to ’88. So no diagnoses; no legal advice; no tax returns completed gratis by accountants in the class.
Our assistance is intended to provide initial direction or assistance or short term-help. While we intend to maintain confidentiality to the extent permitted by law, please know that traditional physician-patient or attorney-client privileges, for example, may not apply.