It’s a job that directly calls on one person to help and assist another person.

And the person who is being helped is a person with a disability. So the job is one that makes a big difference — often the difference between living independently or heading to a group facility of some sort.

The job is being a personal assistant. It is a position funded by the state of Illinois Department of Human Services Division of Rehabilitation Services. Individuals with disabilities qualify for their own particular service plan depending on how much help they may need.

Common tasks personal assistants may perform include cooking, grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning, helping someone in the shower or helping them to get dressed. The persons being assisted range in age from 18 to 59.

The program is coordinated by Options Center for Independent Living. Options, located at 22 Heritage Dr., Bourbonnais, can be reached at 815-936-0100 or optionscil.org. Options provides a wide variety of services to individuals with disabilities, helping them with equipment, information and individuals to cope with the loss of hearing, sight, mobility or other impairments.

The individual with disabilities is the actual employer — the person doing the hiring and supervising.

Tena Stipp, the Community Living Associate who supervises the program for Options, at one point had a list of 129 people working in the program in Kankakee and Iroquois counties. That has shrunk to a mere 29. Covid, Options believes, has crushed the number of people willing to work one-on-one in close physical contact with another person. The need is great.

Stipp used to have five or six people in her orientation classes. Now she might have one or two. The orientation is more informational than academically challenging. Participants learn what a service plan for a person with disability means, how to file their time sheet and the payroll schedule.

The orientation includes a video. There is a background check. People learn about the etiquette of dealing with people who have disabilities.

The need is so drastic that Options took out an electronic billboard on heavily used Route 50 to drum up more applicants. So far, results have been minimal.

The starting pay for the job is $16 an hour. It rises to $17 an hour after a year. There are no educational requirements, though CNA (Certified Nurse Assistant) training would be useful.

The vast number of the 29 people on the list now are women. There are a few men and the men are in great demand. When it comes to helping with bathing, many men would prefer a man to help them.

But by definition and training, the number of people who can serve as paid personal assistants is broad. One exception: A state rule says a spouse cannot serve as a paid personal assistant for their better half.

Jennifer Cappellano, assistant director of Options, explains that there are other family members who can serve, including grandchildren.

Elizabeth Benoit of Manteno is a longtime personal assistant. Like many personal assistants, she has more than one client. She has served one person for three years. They are “besties,” as in best friend. She reads the newspaper to one client who is blind. Another visually-challenged person is no longer able to go to church, so Elizabeth reads her the church bulletin.

Benoit has been a caretaker in one way or another since age 18. She loves what she does. Trained as a CAN and LPN, she has worked in a nursing home, but discovered that taking care of a floor of people was not for her. She prefers working for one person at a time.

The one-on-one relationship is important. She had one client who was a gardener. Benoit wound up learning from her.