An All-Volunteer Ride Service Gets Residents to Their Medical Appointments

The Challenge: A resident survey in Sisters, Oregon, a town of about 3,000 people, revealed that the lack of local transportation is a major problem, especially for older adults.

At a follow-up community meeting, several attendees shared that the lack of transportation impaired their access to medical care.

The survey and the personal testimonies inspired a small group of residents to create an all-volunteer, free transportation service for health care visits. They named it STARS — short for Sisters Transportation and RideShare —and gave it the singular mission: “To provide non-emergency medical rides to Sisters’ residents who are unable to drive themselves.”

“We didn’t do studies or pilots before starting the service,” says Rennie Morrell, a volunteer who serves as the nonprofit's executive director. “When 100 people in a small community say there’s a need for something, it’s worth looking at it.”

The Response: STARS launched in March 2020 with six volunteer drivers, all of whom were age 50-plus. STARS now operates with a crew of 40 volunteers.

It’s a coincidence that STARS debuted at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Rides were provided as needed during that period and, says Morrell, drivers were delivering needed items to residents who were too scared to leave their homes. STARS volunteers also handled Meals on Wheels deliveries due to many of that program's volunteers stepping aside during the pandemic.  

In 2024, STARS provided 726 roundtrip rides, driving more than 32,000 miles in support of residents who had weekday healthcare appointments in Sisters as well as in two neighboring towns.

“We’re located about 25 miles from specialty care, and our residents primarily go to specialty care providers,” says Morrell. “It’s not uncommon for rides to cover 100 miles round-trip.”

Passengers are not allowed to tip the drivers but they are encouraged to make a donation to STARS, which relies entirely on donations and grants. The organization is working to attract consistent funding from larger sponsors.

How It Works

Drivers use their own vehicles and are reimbursed for mileage. An Oregon statute protects volunteer drivers from being accountable for any claims exceeding their personal liability insurance.

Although the drivers are only required to take passengers door-to-door to and from medical appointments, most make added stops for riders, often to the grocery store. “One passenger had a hankering for Chinese food," Morrell notes. "So the driver stopped at the takeout place."

Eligible riders are residents of the Sisters school district (an area of about 10,000 people) who need transportation to a health care appointment. Passengers must:

  • Have the ability to get into and out of a vehicle with little assistance from the driver.

  • Be traveling to an appointment that does not require sedation. (A ride is possible if the passenger is accompanied by a companion.)

  • Give 48 hours or more advanced notice for needing a ride.

To schedule a ride, a passenger call STARS’s dispatch phone number.

  • The request is sent electronically to all drivers.

  • An available driver will confirm the ride and call the passenger directly.

Passengers report using STARS even when they have family members nearby to drive them.

“Sometimes it's just respite for family when people need a lot of rides,” says Morrell. “For dialysis or oncology, we'll have a driver take the person to a very long appointment and then a family member will pick them up. There are a multitude of scenarios where we help both the passenger and a family member.”

Other times, there is no family at all. “It's the saddest thing to ask a passenger for their emergency contact, and they say, ‘Well, can you use my doctor's name’?” says Morrell. “When I explain that we’d prefer to have the name of a relative or friend, they say, ‘I don't have anybody.’”

Driver Cynthia Best, who is in her 60s, is now friends with one of her passengers. “On my own time, I help her get groceries, hang things in her apartment and my husband repaired a chair for her,” she says.

Lessons Learned and Advice

Rennie Morrell, a STARS volunteer and its excecutive director, offers the following advice for replicating the STARS program.

Create a committed team: This should be a small group of compassionate people who really want to see the plan work and are willing to stick around for a while.

Include a techie: At least one person in the core group should have technical savvy so the volunteers can devote themselves to doing the work that can’t be done by technology.

Be patient: Hang in there until the work achieves its initial goals. The beginning can be drudgery: building the organization, creating policies, finding funding, getting the ride management software to work.

Success begets success: When volunteers see they're making a difference in the community, it basically becomes a retention for what you're doing.

Thanking volunteers really matters: “People sometimes think the leadership is about barking orders. Not so,” says Morrell, a retired Navy officer. “I learned to sincerely recognize and reward contributions. I would give my STARS team medals if I could.”

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The Important Work of STARS Dispatchers