News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
UCHRA’s MyRide program is expanding to Warren County.
The program uses volunteers to transport mobile residents 60 and older to anywhere in the county. Regional Coordinator Carey Davenport said the Warren County service should be fully operational sometime this summer.
“We have to have a minimum of 10 volunteers to actually start the program before we can start doing any rides,” Davenport said. “We do have six volunteers that have already agreed to volunteer before the whole pandemic issue and are still willing to volunteer, but we are still looking for those last few volunteers to get the program started.”
Davenport said MyRide is utilizing local government buildings and senior center to facilitate operations. Davenport said Warren County was selected for its size and senior population.
“The reason we have chosen the counties we have chose is because of the amount of seniors and the growth of the population in these counties,” Davenport said. “If you look at the county as a whole, we have actually gone in numerical size.”
Davenport said Overton County is likely to be the next addition once Warren County is operational. Putnam and Cumberland Counties are the other areas that use the program.
“There was originally a lawsuit that the state of Tennessee received due to some elder care not being taken care of properly,” Davenport said. “That money allowed the state of Tennessee to fund different programs in all nine development districts. One of those programs they decided to fund was the MyRide program.”
Davenport said once Warren County is established, clients can schedule to be picked up from their homes either online or by telephone. In order to receive MyRide services, clients pay a $25 annual membership fee. This annual fee includes the cost of the first three trips. Additional trips thereafter cost $2 each and $1 per each additional stop requested. All trips are pre-paid and volunteers collect no money.
For more information about MyRide Upper Cumberland, call (833) 9MY-RIDE or visit www.myrideuctn.com.
