Volunteer of the Month
Archives

November 2019
Linda Sowell

Photo of Linda Sowell

This month we’d like to shine the light on a new, yet not new volunteer. If you read last month’s newsletter, specifically the Activity Spotlite, you would have read a bit about Linda Sowell. Well this month we’d like to shine an even larger spotlight on her as our Volunteer of the Month. Linda is the new Gadabouts Trip Coordinator. She had been working in the Thrift Store and was asked to be a relief in the Trip office. When a vacancy occurred she was asked to take over, which she was more than happy to do. Since then she has been busy scheduling new trips, chaperoning trips on occasion, and generally managing our hustling and bustling trip office. Linda also serves on our Board of Directors. If needed she also helps out at our special events. Originally from Chicago, IL, she moved out to California with her husband who was in the Navy. Once out here she was not content to stay at home raising her two kids (who themselves provided her with five grandkids), but worked in numerous types of jobs. Her main career was in Food Service. She started out at McDonalds as a cashier, and worked her way up to manager. Then she transferred to the school system where she became the Director of Children’s Nutrition for the Bear Valley School District before retiring. Thanks Linda for helping to take our members on trips of a lifetime.

Featured Class

Creative Writing
Date: October 2, 2019
Time: 1:00 - 2:00 pm
Length: 8 Weeks
Cost: $8 members
      $8 non-members
Instructor: Liz Kim
Location: Game Room
Description: The Creative Writing class is taught by Liz Kim, A life-long educator. She has worked in Regular Ed, Special Ed., and Administration. She is also taking a writing class through U.C. Riverside’s Adult Education program. She believes that everyone has a story to tell, and she is prepared to help people to tell it. Liz wants her students to just write. Don’t think, just write. Get the ideas out and clean them up later.

Featured Activity

Tai Chi
Time: Mondays 11:30 a.m.
Cost: $3.00 members
      $3.00 non-members
Location: Exercise Room
Description: The Chinese characters for Tai Chi Chuan can be translated as the Supreme Ultimate Force. The notion of supreme ultimate is often associated with the Chinese concept of yin-yang, the notion that one can see a dynamic duality (male/female, active/passive, dark/light, forceful/yielding, etc.) in all things. Force (or, more literally, fist) can be thought of here as the means or way of achieving this ying-yang, or supreme-ultimate discipline. Or it is possibly from it's origins as a martial art and self-defense technique. Tai Chi as it is more commonly referred to, is practiced in the west today as a moving form of yoga and meditation combined. There are a number of so-called forms (sometimes also called sets) which consist of a sequence of movements. Many of these movements are originally derived from the martial arts and perhaps even more ancestrally than that, from the natural movements of animals and birds. Legend has it that a Taoist monk, first developed a set of 13 exercises that imitate the movements of animals. Some of the movements are even called the Monkey Pick and Horses Mane. It is an exercise almost anyone who can walk can do safely. Tai chi takes the joints gently through their range of motion, while the emphasis on breathing and inner stillness relieves stress and anxiety. Your instructor is Katsuko aka Kats Shiomi and classes held on Mondays and Wednesday from 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m., and the cost is only $3.00 per class. Students should wear comfortable clothing and come ready to find their inner peace.
Ice Cream Party
By:
With the Dog Days of August causing all our dogs to bark, we definitely needed a place to cool down. So the center came to the rescue as a part of us being an official Cooling Center. We held another one of our Ice Cream Parties.

Sponsor Laurel Brown with Home Instead Senior Care helped out by bringing Cookies and Cream ice cream for everyone. However, they had to work for it. The crowd played a bit of 50\'s & 60\'s Trivia for their scoops. Some of the answer the crowd got without much thought. Some of the others caused a bit of head scratching, while some questions left people with that deer in the headlight look.

No matter how they did they all had fun. After all, who can’t have fun coming in from the 100 degree plus days into a cool building for ice cream and games? Thanks to everyone who came in to party with us. Special thanks to Home Instead Senior Care for sponsoring the event.