UPCOMING EVENTS

Activities sponsored by Ashby Village

GAIL SHEEHY KEEPS FOCUS ON ASHBY VILLAGE  

In what might be called our largest -- albeit unofficial -- Living Room Chat, author Gail Sheehy focused on the national Village movement and, specifically, Ashby Village before an audience of more than 100 people on March 2 at Freight and Salvage in Berkeley. It was Sheehy's final lecture in her series on aging, sponsored by the Osher Life Long Learning Institute (OLLI), and she featured several of our Village's members and volunteers recounting in moving detail the ways they have benefited from our community.  

Andy Gaines, Gail Sheehy, Tom Boyden,  Elivia Thiederman, Laura Peck,  Joan Cole and Michelle McGuinness

In the second hour of the two-hour program, during an energetic discussion on Ashby Village, Sheehy and our Executive Director, Andy Gaines, invited a group of members and volunteers to the stage to share their stories.

Volunteer Tom Boyden squeezed the hand of Elivia Thiederman as he told of repairing a unique outdoor table built by her late husband, Hal Thiederman, that had been mangled during a tree-service job. Tom told how Elivia and her husband had sat at the table on many moon-lit evenings, discussing their lives during their 62 years together.  (You can read more by going to Village Stories on our website.)

Member Joan Cole smiled at her husband, Bob Wendlinger, sitting in the audience as she described their request for a volunteer to help her author husband finish an autobiography he'd started before the onset of dementia. Michelle McGuinness responded to their request and spent hours interviewing Bob and reviewing notes buried in his computer. She has just presented Joan and Bob with the first chapter.

Sheehy told of participating in the recent Ashby Village Potluck and Poetry event at the home of Board member Laura Peck, who also spoke. Sheehy marveled at meeting Laura Peck's mother, Thelma, also a Village member, who continues to work well into her 80s.

All our members' stories highlighted Sheehy's earlier comment that "relationships matter more as we age."

Questions from the audience and traffic at our information table afterward were  evidence of active interest among audience members who are not yet members.   

Sheehy's presentation followed by a little over a week the publication of a story she wrote for USA Today on the national Village movement, again featuring Ashby Village, including Board members Bob Davis and Laura Peck, as well as members Merle Davis, Thelma Peck and Paul Axelrod. Sheehy had been a surprise guest at the Ashby Village Potluck & Poetry earlier in February. Her article, entitled "Sometimes it takes a village to let seniors stay at home," can be read here.     

-- Patricia Sussman

INTERDEPENDENCE FOR INDEPENDENT PEOPLE 

Shortly after joining the Village, I needed to rehang art after a paint job. Since I don't climb ladders anymore, I needed help. I thought about using the Village's concierge service to get a volunteer, but I found myself hesitating to do so for weeks on end. I finally made the call after struggling with myself to ask for help, and the next day member-volunteer Paul Axelrod came over and hung the pictures exactly as I wanted them. But why was it so difficult to make that phone call? What I realized is that I am of a generation that struggled for and valued our independence, particularly women. It was very difficult to ask for help. Our recent member survey revealed that many of us are not using the concierge service that the Village provides, and it may be that, like me, others find it hard to ask for help. When I joined the Village, I immediately became a volunteer, finding it much easier to give than to receive. As we age (I am now in my 70s), we need to make the shift from valuing independence to appreciating interdependence, and that is exactly what Ashby Village was established to provide. 

-- Marcia Freedman  

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HELP! 

Village needs and opportunities

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SERVICE SPOTLIGHT:  Bolognese, the Best Medicine

SEEKING VOLUNTEERS: Home Safety and Accessibility Pilot Program

Having a physically safe and easy-to-use home environment is crucial to our being able to live at home in the community. Installing or checking the newer home fire alarms, eliminating home hazards and making both kitchen and bathroom easier to use can extend our ability to live safely and comfortably at home.

For the past several months, volunteer Walter Park has been meeting with Ashby Village members and volunteers to start a member home safety assessment program.Executive Director Andy Gaines worked with Walter in the late 1980s at Independent Housing Services, a community nonprofit that ran a home accessibility renovations program. Later, Walter founded the San Francisco Mayor's Office on Disability.

Ashby Village will hold a members meeting in the third week of April featuring experts on home safety. We are preparing home-safety materials, including a self-assessment checklist. In the next month we hope to have trained volunteers available to help members do assessments in their homes.

If you would like to be trained as a safety and accessibility volunteer, please contact the office. Volunteers will do home visits in pairs. Each visit will take about an hour, and we expect to schedule two visits per day.

If you wish to help us develop the program by hosting a pilot assessment in your home, please let us know.  We would like to do four or five trial runs before we make the program available to all members.

Several years ago, Judy Boe and Joann Sullivan volunteered to be on the Member Services Committee. They agreed to set up a system for finding and vetting local service providers for Ashby Village members.   

 

Since that time, Judy and Joann have worked tirelessly, compiling and vetting a list of more than 150 service providers for Ashby Village members.  The list of service-provider referrals a very high rate of member satisfaction.  It is a pleasure to have them as a team and as part of the larger Ashby Village team.  Their contributions have been enormous.

 

Judy has been a real estate agent at Red Oak Realty for 24 years, and Joann, also in real estate, has been at Thornwall Properties for seven years.  Together they founded the Realtors Resource for Seniors group at the Berkeley Association of Realtors and currently are cochairs.

 

Judy lives in Berkeley with her husband, John, a retired UC Davis lecturer. They have three married daughters and one granddaughter, Stella, who is in the first grade. Joann. also a Berkeley resident, lives with her husband, Jon and has two daughters and a son.

 

MILESTONES

Retirements, book publications, art openings . . . 

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CONTACTS

Committee Chairs

MEMBERSHIP:  Betty Webster,  b.b.webster@att.net 

COMMUNITY-BUILDING AND EVENTS:  Laura Peck,  lpeck@clarosconsulting.com 

                                                                             Barbi Jo Stim,  barbini27@aol.com 

MEMBER SERVICES:  Joann Sullivan,  joann_sullivan@comcast.net 

SOCIAL SERVICES:  Roberta Pressman,  rpress19@comcast.net 

OUTREACH:  Marcia Freedman,  marciafree@earthlink.net 

FUNDRAISING:  Andra Lichtenstein,  andra@capitalincubator.org 

PERSONNEL: Patricia Sussman,  pat@psussman.com

PUBLICATIONS: Peter Sussman, peter@psussman.com