By Rebecca Goldfine,Staff Writer
Retired couple provide rides for elderly; more drivers wanted

BRIDGTON – “Miss America” was escorted slowly past the bright garden next to her apartment building Wednesday morning and into a waiting car by her chauffeur, John Crowe.

Carolyn America, known affectionately by the beauty pageant moniker, was on her way to a weekly $2 luncheon for the elderly at the Bridgton Community Center. Dependent on a walker, America would not have been able to get there if it weren’t for a local, and free, chauffeur service with volunteer drivers such as Crowe.

The white-haired woman is one of 110 clients who use the Senior Transportation Program, started three years ago by Bridgton resident Ingrid von Kannewurff. Now the program has 20 volunteer drivers in Bridgton and surrounding towns.

“The point in providing such transportation is we help to keep the elderly independent and in their homes, ” Fred von Kannewurff, one of the drivers and Ingrid’s husband, said recently.

Dorothy Brutman, a Community Center board member, said von Kannewurff’s service is a glowing accomplishment.

“It’s not just like driving a taxi. It’s that the people who are drivers are kind. It’s more personal,” Brutman said. “There’s a need in this community, because a lot of people are without families, and there’s no public transportation.”

The drivers take clients to Portland and beyond, as well as to Lewiston, Augusta and other area medical centers for doctor’s appointments. They drive them to pharmacies and occasionally to the grocery store. And according to Ingrid von Kannewurff, the drivers at times wait as a client undergoes a lengthy treatment, or they provide companionship to a patient in a recovery room.

All the drivers use their own vehicles and are compensated about 35 cents per mile to cover gasoline and wear and tear. Between 30 and 40 trips are made every month.

And von Kannewurff said she is looking for more volunteers, including people in the Norway-Paris-Oxford area, which has no drivers.

“It was not in our original plan,” von Kannewurff said about expanding her service to the area, as she ate salads and a hot dog at the Community Center lunch. She is also the founder of that three-year-old program, which she said provides a meal to the elderly so they can leave their homes, socialize and eat nourishing, affordable food. “But we don’t see why we can’t extend there,” she said.

The von Kannewurffs moved to Bridgton in 1997 to be closer to their daughter. They had been living in Stanford, Conn., which Fred described as an affluent community with a bus service. Ingrid, 72, was an EMT for a Stanford ambulance service for 17 years after raising her four children. Fred, 75, retired from a management position with Texaco in New York City.

The couple is originally from Hamburg, Germany. Fred von Kannewurff said, “In Europe, you have buses in every little town.” But here, it is often difficult for people in the countryside who cannot drive to be very mobile.

The Senior Transportation Program costs about $24,000 a year to run and relies on grants and donations, the von Kannewurffs said. Last year, its drivers logged 40,000 miles. Other similar programs have been launched around the country, Fred said.

Louis Fisher, 80, and one of the program’s clients, said she does not drive because her car is unreliable and she gets nervous in traffic. She said two weeks ago Ingrid drove her to Portland so she could catch a bus to Bangor and visit her hospitalized brother one last time. He died Friday, Fisher said.

“She drove me to Portland, and it was Sunday,” Fisher said, about Ingrid. “She’s very accommodating.”

On Wednesday morning, Crowe drove his Honda to Sophie Yindra’s home a few miles outside of the town center before returning to the downtown to pick up America.

A retired minister and middle-school teacher, Crowe said that every Wednesday he picks up the two elderly women to take them to lunch.

Once Yindra, 75, sunk into the back seat of Crowe’s car, she touched on a number of subjects in just a few minutes, including her own reputation for being a chatterbox. After speaking about her granddaughter, her travels and even male strippers, Yindra said how grateful she was to the von Kannewurffs.

“I’ve used this service about three years,” she said, and then addressed Crowe. “Don’t let me forget I have to pick up a prescription.” He nodded.

“Ingrid and her husband have done such a wonderful job,” Yindra said, and then recounted, while smiling, the time Fred drove over her flower bed by accident. “You can see his car tracks still in my flower bed,” she said. Crowe laughed out loud.