Now that pandemic restrictions are easing and COVID-vaccinated senior citizens in the Tri-Lakes region are able to get out and be more social, the need for senior services in the area increases.

Mountain Community Senior Services, a nonprofit organization that provides free transportation and handyman services to seniors 60 and older, is pleased to be back in action. The organization has been around for 15 years but had to discontinue services temporarily when the pandemic reached El Paso County last year.

MCSS is funded through the Colorado Springs-based Pikes Peak Area on Aging. Depending on the annual funding MCSS receives, organizers are able to provide a variety of transportation to social events and handyman services to seniors’ homes. All drivers and handymen working with the organization are volunteers, while MCSS covers the cost of project supplies and provides a 14-passenger shuttle.

Lianne Lodwig, board chair for the organization and its dispatcher, said handyman services are usually solicited to install safety apparatus, such as handlebars in showers, wheelchair ramps and the like, in seniors’ homes.

“We will go in and do anything they need us to do,” Lodwig said. “Sometimes it’s even just putting up a Christmas tree.”

MCSS operates under the nonprofit umbrella of the Mountain Community Mennonite Church in Palmer Lake. The organization has been in the community for 18 years and started as a church committee, seeing the need for helping seniors in the community with transportation. It didn’t take long for the committee to see handyman services were a need, and eventually the committee evolved into the organization it is today.

With the start of the pandemic, MCSS lost the availability of some of its volunteers. However, recently more people are starting to show interest in volunteering now that restrictions are being lifted and services are getting back to normal, Lodwig said.

“We are always looking for drivers,” she said. “We have found since everyone is coming back, more and more seniors are wanting to get out and do things. I can totally understand that, since they’ve been isolated for a year and a half.”

Lodwig said the nonprofit’s 14-passenger shuttle is starting to fill up. With additional drivers, the organization could offer transportation to more events for its seniors, she said.

“There is something basically every single day, all day long for them,” Lodwig said.

As for the handyman side of MCSS scope of services, the roster of volunteer handymen is flush. Should a senior have a project which requires a license and larger liability, the organization will locate a contractor for him or her. MCSS may even be able to pay for it depending on its annual funding.

Lodwig said she’s excited the MCSS is able to once again offer its services as the health of the community is on safer ground. “We are being real cautious still of course, but we want to get our seniors out into the community, get them socializing again,” she said. “We want them to know the services are there and we are in full swing right now.”

The board chair said the organization’s seniors are like family, and all have missed the close contact and face-to-face connections.

“We’ve known them for quite a few years,” Lodwig said. “We get to know them. We get to know their families. They think of us as family, too. All the drivers and handymen are connected to them on a first-name basis.

“It has meant so much to us and we are just happy to be back.”