Hopkinton council hears proposal to join regional "village" to help older residents remain at home

The Hopkinton Town Council on an unspecified August evening heard a presentation from Caroline Dillon, executive director of the Village Common of Rhode Island, on creating a regional "village" to help older residents remain in their homes.

The Village Common model is a volunteer-driven, membership organization that matches vetted volunteers with older residents for light household assistance, rides to medical appointments, grocery shopping, basic tech help and friendly visits. Dillon said the organization supports local villages with background checks, volunteer training and outreach; she said the statewide hub has about 3.25 full-time-equivalent staff and that Rhode Island has 11 villages in operation.

The council discussion centered on how a Hopkinton-centered village would operate and whether the town could recruit enough volunteers. Dillon said a new village typically needs roughly 20 volunteers and about 10 members to launch; membership is "pay what you can," and she noted examples of suggested contributions ranging from $10 to $40 a month. She told the council volunteers complete a national background check and receive role-specific training.

"It's volunteers who provide services to the members," Dillon said. "It's friendly calls and visits. It's light household maintenance... and volunteers will go into the home to help with setting up a new printer or teaching someone how to FaceTime." The organization, she said, does not provide personal care such as feeding or dressing.

Councilors and staff said the program could help local residents stay in their homes but expressed practical concerns about staffing and outreach. Tina Levine, director of public welfare, said Hopkinton will need to recruit volunteers to make the program work and noted existing local volunteer programs have struggled to attract help.

"The problem now... is I don't know how many volunteers we could get in order to facilitate this," Levine said. She asked whether town staff could help with outreach and pledged to support initial steering‑committee meetings.

Councilor Davis, who invited the Village Common to present, said she and Levine would attend early steering‑committee sessions to help organize the effort. Councilor Roy said she was not opposed to the village idea but raised objections to the group's stated core value of "diversity, equity and inclusion," saying she objects to mandatory trainings that she described as politically charged.

"If you need someone to train you to be a good person, you might want to think about putting that training somewhere else," Roy said. She also questioned whether a 501(c)(3) organization that adopts certain DEI policies could become ineligible for state or federal grants, a point she said she had researched and distributed to the council.

Dillon and Levine said the Village Common is volunteer-led and supported by local sponsors and cited the hub's existing work statewide, including outreach and educational programming on balance, healthy aging and technology. Dillon said printed volunteer applications and program brochures were available at Town Hall.

No formal council vote was taken; councilors agreed to continue local conversation and to participate in initial steering‑committee work.

Two transcript excerpts supporting this report are included below.