If you’re a senior with a tech question, Matt McCoy and his friend Alex Ryzer would like you to please call them. Two months ago, the friends launched Student Helpers, a free tech-support hotline for seniors. However, they’re still struggling to find enough clients to keep up with the overwhelmingly positive response of their student volunteer base.
A month ago, they started turning away high school students with volunteer hour quotas to fill.
“We would like to open that back up again,” McCoy explains. “But the biggest challenge has been getting in touch with seniors. We would love it if people would feel open and comfortable sharing this resource with their own parents and grandparents. Our seniors are actually helping the students because students are having a hard time getting good volunteer hours.”
Since the launch, McCoy, 24, says he has connected with community centres, retirement communities, nonprofits and senior organizations, including the Alzheimer’s Society, to help them get the word out. Still, the hotline only gets one to three calls a day from seniors.
Seniors leave a message with their tech question and a call-back number. Student Helpers puts that call out to their volunteer base, and trained volunteers call the senior back within 24 hours.
With 150 vetted student volunteers, McCoy says it takes on average about 25 seconds for one of his volunteers to claim the call.
“We have lots of students willing to help,” McCoy says. “It definitely seems to be clicking with high school students.
McCoy says he was inspired to start the project by his experiences of providing tech support to his own family. During the pandemic, older generations struggled to “pivot” everything in-person to online.
“I realized over time that even though my parents or grandparents were able to reach me easily, there was probably lots of parents and grandparents who didn’t have an easy time reaching someone when they needed it.”
As each younger generation grows up more and more at ease in the digital world, McCoy says high school students are often able to effortlessly troubleshoot a problem that can seem impossible for a senior.
“I’m not a super technical person myself,” the 24-year-old says. “Even for me, these high school students are more knowledgeable than me (about everyday tech questions).”
One of the first callers to the hotline was Bronte resident Johanna Kendall, who heard about the service soon after it launched.
The service was able to help her husband understand how to keep using his old iPhone, and they were also able to advise her on how to solve her home Wi-Fi problem.
Kendall heard about the program from her daughter, visiting from abroad and found Student Helpers on Facebook. Kendall says, “I’m definitely a senior, but I’m not ancient yet. When you have an issue, you’re stymied you can’t get anything done. You hit roadblocks, and you don’t know where to turn.
“I call it torture when you can’t do what you want to do -- you’re trying to do your banking, and you can’t get it done. It is really frustrating!”
“You just tell (Student Helpers) what the issue is, and they find a student who has some good information. Within 24 hours, they call you back.
Kendall says her husband used to troubleshoot their tech problems, but it’s been getting too much lately. While her Gen X children are capable, she doesn’t want to burden them.
“When they come to visit me, we’re trying to have a nice visit. My kids are both busy – they don’t have time for me to be harassing them with my tech issues. They deal with it all week themselves, and it’s torture for them too.”
Seniors with tech questions can reach Student Helpers toll-free at 1-833-989-TALK(8255) or visit the website and enter their query into the chatbox. All student volunteers are vetted by Student Helpers, located in Ontario and trained on Internet privacy and security.
"We do not get any personal information from seniors other than a first name and a call back number," McCoy says. "We forbid any account sharing -- we are only there over the phone or video calling platform, but in no scenario is there sharing of passwords or logging in for seniors."
