Volunteer of the Month
Archives
April 2021
Leisa Alexander
This month we’d like to shine the light on someone few of you may have seen, but may have benefited from her volunteering. Lesia (pronounced Lisa) Alexander has been helping us out since 2020. During that time she has helped serve meals for Thanksgiving, Operation Senior Claus, and most recently, the Grab-n-Go dinners Monday thru Friday she can be helping out her sister, Mae Lucero, getting the dinners from the local restaurants, then helping to distribute them to seniors at the center. However, Leisa doesn’t just come here help to serve food. All that work can wear a person out, so when she’s not volunteering, she enjoys coming to the center’s Aerobics Program to boost her cardio. Originally from Meridian, MS, she and her two siblings came out Calif., to live with, and be raised by their big sister Mae, when their mom passed away. After she grew up she went to work for the Dept. of Corrections where she worked for 27 years before retiring. During that time she raised a son, who in turn, gave her a grandchild. Thanks Leisa for helping to ensure that our senior don’t go hungry.
Featured Class
Spanish
Date: April 23, 2020
Time: 1:30 - 2:30 pm
Length: 8 weeks
Cost: $8 members
$8 non-members
Instructor: TBA
Location: Game Room
Description: This class is designed to teach students conversational Spanish. The class will enable you to carry on limited conversation at first just to get you started. Then as you progress, so will the levels. As for what to bring, just bring a writing instrument and paper. Books might come later. We hope to see you there, or as you will soon be saying, Esperamos verte ahÃ.
Featured Activity
Scrabble
Time: Mondays 1:00 p.m.
Cost: Free members
Free non-members
Location: Game Room
Description: The scrabble group is looking for people who know how to mind their p's and q's. Or any of the letters of the alphabet. The group is down to a handful of players and are ready, willing, and able for more players to join them. Basically, 'Scrabble' is a word game in which two to four players score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a game board marked with a 15-by-15 grid. The words are formed across and down in crossword fashion and must appear in a standard dictionary. Proper nouns, abbreviations, or hyphenated words, with some exceptions, are not allowed. You can however, come up with the theoretically highest known score of 1,778 points for joining 8 already-played tiles to form the word OXYPHENBUTAZONE across three triple-word-score squares, while simultaneously extending 7 specific already-played words to form new words. Our Scrabble group meets every Monday at 1:00 p.m. in the game room, and is free for everyone. Good luck on the OXYPHENBUTAZONE.
Meet our New Employee
By: Mike Sylva
We’d like to introduce you to the “newest” member of the Highland Senior Center family. Kim Scarcella is actually a familiar face here at the center, being our university computer instructor. Now is officially working here as the new Outreach/Program Director.
She knew that Annette Mendenhall had left us and one day, was talking to Executive Director, Penny Lilburn, about helping out. Penny told her she would keep it in mind, thinking that Kim was being nice. Penny took her at her word, and it turns out, not only was she being nice, but she truly did want to help out!
Now she is busy getting her feet wet in the Transportation Assistance Program, where has been using her formidable computer skills to organize a decades worth of files while updating and creating forms. The teacher is also the student as Misti Stephens shows her the ropes of the TAP program.
Originally from La Mesa, CA near San Diego, it was there that she met her husband, Joe, while he was in the Navy. She earned her degree in Human & Child Development from San Diego State University, before they moved to Missouri for his graduate studies. During that time she did double duty as a mom and some part time work at a Montessori, secretarial work, and a substitute teacher.
Her husband became a professor at Cal State San Bernardino, which brought her to Highland. Once here she got another degree in Vocational Education, then received her teaching credential. Following that she got a job at the Adult Education, teaching computer classes. That, in turn, brought her to us. “Welcome” Kim. Then again, you’ve been welcome here for a long time!
