For nearly 30 years, volunteers with the Service League of Greater Lakeway have impacted their neighbors’ lives by offering a single service—transportation.


Joan Buzzard, a charter member of the organization, said the group formed in 1988 to meet a transportation need among the community's elderly members. People had medical appointments in Austin but had trouble driving to them, she said.




The Service League of Greater Lakeway maintains an inventory of medical equipment, including crutches and wheelchairs, to help residents in need. The Service League of Greater Lakeway maintains an inventory of medical equipment, including crutches and wheelchairs, to help residents in need.[/caption]

“We had no money,” she said of the league. “So the Lakeway Civic Corp. paid for our telephone. They still pay for our phone bill.”


Today the league continues to operate the program with 80 volunteers making about 300 trips a year, said Tom Seidenstricker, the group’s president. Volunteers also answer the phones in office space donated by Prosperity Bank, he said.


Any resident of Lakeway, no matter his or her age, can call for a ride, Seidenstricker said.


“It’s just taking people to appointments that they need to get to, but it’s also being there to talk,” he said. “We’ve got people in Lakeway who have amazing life histories.”


Whether a trip involves listening to one woman’s tales of running a limousine company or another’s journey out of Germany during World War II, Seidenstricker said he and his charge may start out as strangers but end up as friends.


“I always walk away from helping someone [and question], ‘[Why] are they thanking me?” he said. “I should be thanking them.”


The program has expanded over time, with volunteers now offering home repair services and medical equipment to individuals in need.




Stowaway Storage owner Tom DeCicco provides a place for the group to store its items. Stowaway Storage owner Tom DeCicco provides a place for the group to store its items.[/caption]

“[The medical equipment offerings] started just by people donating when they had a wheelchair or crutches people no longer needed,” Buzzard said.


Stowaway Storage owner Tom DeCicco offers a free space to store the medical items, which are delivered to users free of charge and picked up when they are no longer needed.


Lakeway may have grown since the program began, but the idea of neighbors helping neighbors is still important to the league.


“We want to reassure [our residents] they are not ever going to be left out,” Buzzard said.