When Dorothy Lucas stands from her chair at Dallas F. Nicholas Sr. Elementary School, her 71-year-old muscles barely uncoil. Bent at the waist, she walks slowly, methodically.
Despite her asthma, and having recently learned that breast cancer is threatening her life and surgery is needed on her achy knees, Lucas is smiling.
"I'm not doing too good right now, but I don't worry about it because I feel good about myself, because I got a job," said the retired Forest Park resident.
Lucas is one of 108 elderly people who are paid volunteers at six North Baltimore elementary schools, helping teachers, pupils - and themselves.
They're participants in Experience Corps, a collaboration of the Johns Hopkins University, the Greater Homewood Community Corp. and AmeriCORPS, the program's primary funder. The program runs in 19 cities, but Baltimore is the only one with a clinical feature.
Hopkins wants to prove that active senior citizens are more likely to be healthy senior citizens, whether in the mind, body or spirit, who can be highly effective workers.
The volunteers also work at Abbottston, Barclay, Guilford, Margaret Brent and Medfield Heights elementary schools in grades pre-kindergarten to third. They work with pupils one on one or in small groups, take them for restroom breaks and talk to those who are misbehaving.
And there is no question about their effectiveness, say teachers and principals, who credit the 4-year-old program with helping to boost pupils' test scores and reduce disciplinary incidents.
"My fear initially was that our senior citizens would be in for a culture shock because our children aren't used to seeing people that old," said Dallas F. Nicholas principal Irma Johnson.
"But I'm surprised. The kids are very protective of the seniors," Johnson added. "The benefits for the kids to have a grandparent figure who is going to help them and encourage them is just invaluable."
Each of the schools in the program is located in the Greater Homewood area and represents an effort by the community organization to revitalize its 42 neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, Hopkins is analyzing data from the program's first three years to determine whether it has helped the health of the volunteers, whose median age is 72.
"There is mounting evidence that having productive roles and feeling like you are making a difference is really good for the health of older people," said Linda Fried, a Hopkins medical professor and director of Hopkins' Center on Aging and Health. "This is a study to prove that this is the case."
Fried co-founded the program in 1994 with Mark Freedman, president of a San Francisco nonprofit organization, Civic Ventures.
At the beginning and end of each school year, the volunteers go through tests evaluating their blood pressure, physical strength, dexterity, memory retention and their own perceptions of their health.
Some participants have worn pedometers for the study, gauging how fast and far they walk, said Experience Corps project director, Robin Parsell, who reports to Fried.
This, however, is not a controlled study, Fried said, because the university is not conducting a parallel health study of senior citizens who are less active and not in a steady work environment.
"We won't know for sure that the activity that older people get in a school makes a difference for them rather than sitting at home and not being involved," Fried said. "But we're hoping we have strong evidence to suggest that is the case."
If some volunteers' experiences are any indication, Fried's hypothesis is true.
Dorothea Long of West Baltimore said that after her husband died in 1998, she grieved, sat around the house and felt herself growing older as her body grew stiffer. A year later, the first year for Experience Corps in Baltimore, Long joined the program.
"My husband died, and I wanted to just get out and do something, but I really would just sit in a chair and get sore," said Long, 68, who volunteers at Dallas F. Nicholas. "I needed to do this program to help me get active. And now I go up and down the stairs and I don't hurt."
Phyllis McArthur, a Walbrook resident, said working at Dallas F. Nicholas the past two years has given her life new purpose.
"Before, I felt there was nothing for me to do, like I had gotten too old for anything," said McArthur, 63, who suffers from arthritis in her knees. "I get up now and I go to work. It's like you don't have time to sit around and think about your pain."
Teachers benefit, too.
"She helps me so much in the classroom," Dallas F. Nicholas second-grade teacher Mary Zervos said of Lucas, her classroom volunteer. "We have a couple of children who are a little bit slow, and she can take them to the side to catch up, and I don't have to slow down teaching the rest of the class."
While Long walked a group of pre-kindergartners to the restroom, teacher Heidi Knight never stopped teaching the rest of the class.
"With little people, they're so fast, you need so much help," Knight said. "It's a wonderful thing having her here. I do less shoe-tying and more teaching."
The program has a $400,000 annual budget. AmeriCORPS, a national public service organization, provides about $300,000, which covers the volunteers' annual stipend of $2,541, leaving Experience Corps to locally raise the other $100,000 in matching funds for operational expenses, Fried said.
While the clinical study is important and could lead to a larger, more controlled trial later, Fried said, a greater reward might be in having a community program that effectively employs a growing population of senior citizens, people who sometimes feel nonessential.
"In many ways, we're learning right along with the children," said volunteer Lucas. "We learn that they just need love. And I'm going to be here working for them as long as I can."