Ayla walks to the refrigerator, pulls out a carton of milk, and pours a tall glass. Drink in hand, she ambles out of the kitchen, switching off the light behind her. On her way through the living room, she flips on the VCR before making her way to the couch. She then hands George the drink and settles down beside him to watch a movie.

While this scene could have been snipped from a day in almost anyone's life, Ayla is actually a monkey trained to help George, a quadriplegic, live independently. She has lived with George for two years, and will likely spend the rest of her life helping him get through the daily-living tasks that most people take for granted.

Helping Hands: Monkey Helpers for the Disabled, an organization that matches capuchin-monkey helpers with quadriplegics, estimates that the specially trained monkeys could help from 6,000 to 12,000 people in the United States. To date, the nonprofit agency has placed more than 60 monkeys that bring food and drinks, pick up dropped items, operate electronics, and keep their owners company. And the demand for the friendly, dexterous primates keeps growing.

"One of our recent placements was to a man who had waited 10 years [for a monkey]," says Judi Zazula, executive director of Helping Hands. If all goes as planned, future requests will be met more quickly.

Helping Individuals, Boosting a Community
In February 2000, Helping Hands bought a dilapidated, 150-year-old church in Allston, Massachusetts, with the idea of transforming it into a headquarters large enough to train more monkeys for the long list of people awaiting them. The following month, the nonprofit moved from its Brighton office into the former church. This year, Helping Hands expects to begin an overhaul that will yield 6,000 square feet of new work space.

Plans call for restoring the church as closely as possible to its original look, from the exterior's stained-glass windows to the interior's arched doors and moldings. Helping Hands will remain in the building throughout the renovations, shifting its operations to accommodate the construction, says Ms. Zazula. Once the renovations are complete, she hopes to double to about 40 the number of capuchin "trainees" in house at any given time.

A $620,000 Community Development advance from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston will help fund the acquisition of the church and its extensive renovations. Peoples Federal Savings Bank, of Brighton, Massachusetts, applied for the advance to support the initiative, which qualified for the discounted funding because most employees of Helping Hands are low- to moderate-income earners.

Six permanent staff members work at Helping Hands, and five to eight Boston University pre-med, occupational-therapy, and biology majors spend several hours a week training monkeys as part of their school's work-study program. Jim Gavin, vice president of Peoples Federal Savings Bank, says that his institution was eager to work with Helping Hands because it strengthens the local economy.

"We didn't want to see any jobs leave the area. Plus, the new headquarters is very convenient to the college students who work there as trainers," he says.

An Ongoing Commitment
However, Peoples Federal Savings Bank staff also recognized that the impact of Helping Hands extends far beyond the Boston area.

"You can't measure in dollars the contribution that Helping Hands makes to society. This is an organization that does an incredible amount of good for people all over the United States, and it doesn't charge its clients a cent," says Mr. Gavin.

Helping Hands spends about $25,000 on each monkey placement. That figure covers the cost of importing the monkey (usually from Central or South America), paying for its upbringing and training, and delivering it to its new home. Helping Hands also provides free perpetual supportive services to clients and their monkeys, which typically live 30 to 40 years.

The Paralyzed Veterans of America, the National Science Foundation, the Veterans' Administration, and other private foundations provided early research funding. Since 1989, Helping Hands has relied on private and corporate contributors to pay its overhead and expenses.

Infant monkeys are placed with foster parents, who spend several hours a day nurturing the animals through their early lives. After five or six years, monkeys undergo 18 months of training before being matched with quadriplegic individuals whose needs most closely match the monkeys' skills.

While quadriplegia can result from a variety of diseases, the majority of its victims are 19- to 25-year-olds whose spines have been permanently injured in accidents. Because many of these mishaps are avoidable, Ms. Zazula often visits elementary- through college-age students to explain how risky behavior can have life-altering consequences. In addition, Helping Hands offers a spinal-cord-injury prevention program to the public.

"We try to help children make better choices, so they don't end up having to call us," says Ms. Zazula.

This article originally appeared in the Bank's Tools for Housing and Community Economic Development newsletter (issue 16, Winter 2001).