‘Are you okay?’ program checks in on senior residents
By WECT Staff | March 30, 2020 at 4:28 PM EDT – Updated March 30 at 9:50 PM
NEW HANOVER COUNTY, N.C. (WECT) – The New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office has several programs designed to help people in the community.
The “Are You Okay?” program is specifically designed for older people in the area.
“A lot of the elderly don’t have family close and that’s what this program focuses on,” said Cpl. Gene Moore with the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office. “So it’s important to know that they are okay on a daily basis and if not, and don’t have anybody to check on them that we’ll go check on them. It is a free program you have to reside in New Hanover County and that’s really it.”
Those who are signed up for the service will get a phone call each day to check on their well-being. A prompt will ask if the person is doing well and they simply respond by pressing a button.
If no button is pressed, a series of calls begin until an alert is issued to reach that person’s emergency contact or have police go out for a welfare check.
“We get calls all the time, ‘Hey, can you go check on my mother?’ or ‘I haven’t heard from them in a few days or two weeks. Can you go check on them.’ We get calls like that all the time, so this is a really good service to the community,” said Cpl. Moore.
The program was implemented more than a decade ago, but it’s more important now than ever.
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