July 6, 2016
‘No one should have to age alone’ Learn & Play
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Summertime snacking
Community Voices
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By Odie Smith
Submitted photo Rosemary, a resident of Delmar Gardens, with Allen, a volunteer with Senior Connections. “There’s really nothing that can replace the feeling that I get when I arrive, our eyes connect, and Rosemary yells out, ‘Well, hi there cutie!’” Allen said.
Around Town
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School
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Hummingbirds gone?
Senior Connections pairs volunteers with seniors, and builds friendships along the way By Sara Hardin “Simple acts of tender mercy will eventually tilt the earth on its axis, and slowly, the world will be changed.” This is the philosophy of Dr. Suzsanne Singer, who in 1999 founded Senior Connections, a program that pairs volunteers with seniors in need of companionship. Singer, who passed away at the age of 88 in May 2013, founded Senior Connections with the intent to create meaningful connections between seniors and relational volunteers to combat the feelings of loneliness and depression that aging sometimes brings. Ask any relational volunteer; however, and they will simply identify as a friend. “I don’t think of myself anymore as just a volunteer. We’ve established a friendship that’s built on trust and care and respect for each other,” said Alvia Chambers, a relational volunteer with Senior Connections since April 2012. “Early on, I would tell people ‘I’m going to visit my friend at the nursing home through this program.’ Now it’s just, ‘I’m going to visit my friend.’ It’s been a very rewarding, warm relationship. I miss when I’m not able to see her, and it’s the same way with her. I just love her. I will continue to visit her for the duration of whatever time we both have here.”
After struggling in 2013 to break into enough funding for the program, Senior Connections found a new home with Lutheran Senior Services in 2014. Traditionally, Senior Connections has assisted seniors in senior communities. Now, with support from LSS and the Boeing Employee Trust, the program hopes to broaden its mission to find more volunteers and help homebound seniors. “We really feel that no one should have to age alone,” said Sandra Roeder Singer, Volunteer Coordinator for Senior Connections. “Our volunteers have a real passion for doing this, partly because the need is so great, and partly because it is an incredibly rewarding experience. Senior Connections is all about the relationships that are formed across different races, cultures and ages. It’s about serving someone who is vulnerable and very much in need, and often marginalized by virtue of being old. They may have no family, or they may have no family who visits for various reasons. It revolves around the relationship, and that is what Dr. Suzsanne Singer’s work was focused on.” Because the need for companionship for seniors is so high, Senior Connec-
tions hopes to see its model of volunteer training adopted across the country. Since there was no previous existing model for training companions for seniors before Dr. Suzsanne Singer founded the program, Senior Connections has created its own mold for helping volunteers face the See ALONE page 2
Teaching to be money smart
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