BUCYRUS – The phones are still ringing at CONTACT Crawford County – just as they have for the last 45 years.
Crawford County’s helpline has been lending an ear to those in need since 1976, offering information and referral services 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But mostly, CONTACT’s caring volunteers these days are there to listen. And offer hope.
“We help people as they work through their own issues and then they think with a little bit of help they’ll be O.K.,” said Susan Buzza, CONTACT’s acting director. “Listening is the key, active listening, and we found that is the one common way to endure yourself to anyone in the world.”
The agency, which is accredited by CONTACT USA, is primarily a helpline for the lonely, the depressed and those struggling with personal problems, Buzza said. But through the years it’s also served as the county’s main suicide prevention hotline, she said.
The organization is also known for its Reassurance Program whereby volunteers, when requested, make daily wellness checks on friends or family members. “We get to know these people really well even though we’ve never met them,” Buzza said. “Sometimes we’re the only people they talk to all day.”
If anyone knows the workings of CONTACT, it’s Buzza. She’s been there from the get-go.
The organization, she said, was formed March 31, 1976, when a small group of Bucyrus residents decided that the county needed a centralized information hotline to connect callers to food pantries, transportation services, and even shelters for battered women.
“Back then people didn’t know where to go,” she said. “People were knocking on church doors looking for help and even the pastors didn’t really know where to send them. Of course, we’ve evolved from there.”
Telephones were rotary-style in those days, said Buzza, who started as a volunteer at the agency’s base in Bucyrus. At that time, she said, CONTACT was also the after-hours answering service for Community Counseling, the Red Cross, Salvation Army, and other organizations.
The agency’s role, however, gradually shifted over the years from a hotline to a “warmline,” Buzza said. Nowadays callers aren’t necessarily looking for information or referrals, she said, but rather the reassurance knowing that someone on the other end of the line cares enough to listen that their son was arrested or their wife is planning to leave.
“It really is I think the purest form of friendship you can have with a total stranger because they understand better when they talk to someone else,” Buzza said. “Loneliness seems to permeate the whole issue of what people worry about these days.”
The faith-based, non-profit organization receives funding primarily from the Crawford-Marion ADAMH Board, Buzza said, and from local services groups and individuals. Volunteers have to undergo intensive training before taking their first phone call, she said.
Services are free and confidential. Callers can talk as long as they want, Buzza said, knowing that their feelings and concerns will not be judged. “The one thing that never changes is people need people. They need people to care about them and we hope we do that.”
CONTACT is always in need of more volunteer “listeners,” Buzza said. In Bucyrus, the agency can be reached at 419-562-9010, while Galion residents can call 419-468-9081.