Community Living Campaign

Cultivating connections to help seniors and people with disabilities age and thrive at home.

Cultivating connections to help seniors and people with disabilities age and thrive at home.

SF Senior Beat Stories

Senior Beat Covers the In-Home Caregiving Crisis

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Staff writers Mary Hunt and Judy Goddess wanted to write about in-home caregiving in part because they and their friends are of the age when the need is a present or near-future reality. And they figured it’s better to learn to navigate the system when you’re in better health than not.

Once they started to explore, Goddess said, it suddenly seemed as though every middle-aged and older person is giving or receiving care or has a caregiver story. Often, they involve children or spouses trying to convince a frail senior that they need care. Or they’re about seniors or their families struggling to find a reliable, competent caregiver whose personality and skills suit the recipient. Just as importantly, they’re about figuring how to pay for that care.

As of 2020, there were 2.3 million home care workers in the United States, according to April Verrett,  president of SEIU Local 2015 in California, the nation’s largest long-term-care union. And if we are to meet the needs of our aging population, she wrote in TIME magazine, we’ll need another 1.2 million by 2028. Yet, even now, there are not enough caregivers to meet the needs.

Their efforts to look into the world of in-home care produced a series of stories we’ll be releasing over the next several days, along with resources for readers. You can subscribe to San Francisco Senior Beat (see the top of our website) to get email notices when new stories are published, or follow us on Facebook, or follow this guide to know when to check our site for our caregiving stories.

THE SCHEDULE:

Wednesday, May 4: High costs and dearth of financial assistance programs for middle-income seniors leave them in the lurch when help at home is needed. The Rev. Eileen Kinney is one of the many Americans, those of middle-income, for whom costly in-home care is unaffordable. She began having trouble with basic tasks like cleaning and cooking when her neuropathy worsened. But not being wealthy enough to hire care, nor poor, which would have qualified for in-home care through Medi-Cal, she had nowhere to turn – until she was able to get into one of the rare programs that offer financial help for seniors in the middle-income gap.

Friday, May 6: ‘I’m too young to need a walker!’ A fall and fracture jolt an independent life in a comfy Stonestown apartment. Mary Hunt didn’t think of herself as old at the age of 76. Even when she broke her wrist in a fall, she didn’t see the need to hire a caregiver. She lived alone but had friends around and a sister in Daly City. Her daughter lives in Georgia. Having some stranger come in felt like an intrusion.

Sunday, May 8: Tending to aging seniors in their homes a necessary and noble occupation, but undervalued – and physically and emotionally challenging: Debbie Gilli had always loved being around her grandmother and her in-laws. She simply liked older people. It wasn’t much of a stretch to become a caregiver. Anna Kivalu likes the look into other lived worlds she gets when helping clients. Lourdes Dobarganes gets clients to salsa dance with her to strengthen their balance and keep them moving. She’s also been known to have them hug trees for a positive energy experience. They have few complaints about their work, but would like to make more money and have benefits like overtime, sick time or workers compensation. Those obstacles are barriers to the supply of caregivers keeping up with the demand for their services.

Tuesday, May 10: Family members make up majority of in-home caregivers due to help’s high cost, taking on all-consuming, sometimes overwhelming role. The high cost of in-home caregiving has led many families to take on the burden themselves. In fact, the vast majority of caregivers serving Medi-Cal clients in San Francisco – hired through the city’s In-Home Supportive Services program – are family members. While most become members of the caregivers union and make slightly more than minimum wage, it is still an all-consuming, physically exhausting and sometimes maddening job.

Thursday, May 12: Neighborhood and ‘village’ networks help seniors who live near one another as aging makes daily tasks more difficult. Within eight years, a third of San Franciscans will be 60 or older, and according to various studies about a third will live alone. In 2020, that would have been about 54,000 seniors. The ones who have no family, or none that live nearby, are turning to neighbors to form support networks for help with everyday tasks they’re having trouble with – getting to a doctor’s appointment, shopping for groceries, changing a lightbulb –temporarily or long term. Some of these neighborhood networks are informal; others involve low-cost memberships that offer support as well as activities.

 

Honoring Beverly Ann Taylor

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Ms. Taylor has been such a strong and committed leader to San Francisco, with a history of excellent work in other communities through out her life.   Ms. Taylor fought hard to stay with us, but her time on this plain ended. Her obituary  that includes her life of service and advocacy for justice here.

Not long ago, Judy Goddess did the interview with Beverly which is posted on the Senior Beat Website. 

And an interview from 2020 with Beverly where she talk about growing up at  https://vimeo.com/682932784

 

 

 

Robin Evans, SF ReServe Good Neighbor

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Each year, our Good Neighbor Awards honor some of the dedicated neighbors who volunteer their time to help seniors and people with disabilities get the resources and support they need to age and thrive in their own homes and neighborhoods. We are delighted to honor Robin as our 2019 Good Neighbor Honoree for SF ReServe Employment.

Robin was introduced to the Community Living Campaign by a mutual friend and CLC staff member. Passion for the mission keeps her involved.

The Beginning of Senior Beat
Through SF ReServe, Marie Jobling hired three beginning reporters to write part-time for CLC and neighborhood newspapers. The focus: items of interest to seniors. However, the dearth of newspapers and their monthly publication schedule limited their ‘beat’: thus sfseniorbeat.com was born.

First, Robin spent months just creating the website. Then followed the ongoing challenge of making the most of it, all the while nurturing the writing abilities of her eager but novice staff.

The Legacy Continues
Robin edits sfseniorbeat.com, the online newsletter that showcases the diversity, backgrounds, experiences, challenges, efforts and accomplishments of the City’s older adults.

Robin explains, “There is no one else who regularly and consistently publishes the kind of stories we have focused on. Our goal is to increase the diversity of our content and include more of the City’s neighborhoods.” She adds, “For now, we will concentrate on feature stories about older adults. We hope this will go some way toward broadening views of aging.”

Judy Goddess, Good Neighbor and Community Catalyst

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Each year, our Good Neighbor Awards honor some of the dedicated neighbors who volunteer their time to help seniors and people with disabilities get the resources and support they need to age and thrive in their own homes and neighborhoods. We are delighted to honor Judy as our 2019 Community Catalyst Good Neighbor Honoree.

“Community catalyst” describes Judy Goddess perfectly. She received her Good Neighbor Award for spearheading not one, but three projects.

Senior Beat
First, she developed the reporting project, providing articles and a column on seniors in neighborhood newspapers. She recruited two other reporters through the CLC ReServe program, and the venture grew into an online magazine for older adults called Senior Beat.

Always Active
Next, Judy organized an Always Active class in her own neighborhood which has become the Inner Sunset Community Connector Program. As she walks to class, she sees people lined up early to ensure a place.

Third Project
Then, the San Francisco Friends School called CLC looking for seniors who their 5th grade students could interview. Judy is particularly fond of mixed generation projects so she set up a program with this Quaker school.

When asked where she gets her energy, Judy says, “I love meeting people, especially the seniors. They’re making such interesting lives for themselves and are so resilient. I’m really inspired by them.”

Couple dances to the same tune, blending love of exercise with dedication to volunteering

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Dance instructors Ana Silvia and Irving Rivera.

SENIOR BEAT – Ana Silvia and Irving Rivera, married 38 years, teach Zumba as volunteers at the 30th Street Senior Center. Their love of exercise grew to match their commitment to volunteerism.

Their volunteering started in their kids’ schools  – they had a girl and a boy – from kindergarten through high school. Now they teach the Zumba class as well as a Stanford-designed Healthy Living class. Mrs. Rivera also volunteers in the center’s programs department, compiling volunteer statistics.

“Giving back to the community is in our DNA,” she said.

The Rivera’s path to volunteering and exercise began where they met – at City College San Francisco in the 1970s. Both were taking exercise classes to fulfill requirements for their Associate Arts’ degrees in science: hers in  transportation; his in engineering.  After their children went off to college in 2000, the Riveras returned to the school to take dancing, yoga and swimming classes.

“How I got to love yoga was the result of stress on the job,” said Mrs. Rivera. “When I changed jobs, I began to experience headaches. The doctor prescribed therapy and Vioxx.” She never took the pills, instead listening to her therapist, who said there was nothing wrong with her and advised yoga for stress reduction.

Life was good for the Riveras as they became more proficient in many different Latin dances. “I didn’t want to go at first,” said Mr. Rivera, 64, “but I’m glad Ana encouraged me because now I love to dance.”

Coming back from injury

Unfortunately, in 2007, their exercise life was interrupted by a motorcycle accident. “I broke my right leg in three different places, and had to be in a wheelchair for eight months,” said Mrs. Rivera. “The recovery was slow for the bones because they put eleven screws into my leg.”

In 2008, with the doctor’s green light to start exercising again, the Riveras went back to the pool for water aerobics. “Because of the accident, when I got in the pool again, I became petrified of the deep water,” said Mrs. Rivera. “I would cry, but little by little I became brave.”

This experience of overcoming her fear motivated both of them to help novice students experiencing fear in the deeper part of the pool. For the past 10 years, they have assisted the CCSF swimming teacher for beginning students.

“I counsel students who are afraid. I tell them about my accident, my fear and how I was able to overcome it,” said Mrs. Rivera.

As Mrs. Rivera’s interest in Latin dances expanded, so did her interest in Zumba. In 2010, she joined a class at the 3691 Fit Club on Mission Street. “Zumba is fun because it keeps me strong, positive and helps me maintain my weight,” she said.

In 2016, after six years of taking Zumba classes, one of the staff members at the 30th Street Senior Center approached Mrs. Rivera about offering a Zumba class to the seniors. “At first, I was excited to do it, but concerned about the responsibility of taking on a commitment of teaching once a week,” she said. “But, the internal strength I felt from my yoga and stretching classes gave me confidence.”

A true team effort

Zumba, a fitness program developed in the 1990s by a Columbian dancer and choreographer named Beto, combines many Latin dances including: Cumbia, Merengue, Salsa, Cha Cha and Samba. “I add Bachata and Rock and Roll just for fun,” said Mrs. Rivera, who holds a Zumba teaching certificate.

She and her husband – she’s the main instructor with her husband as assistant – have been teaching Zumba at 20th Street Senior Center for the past two and a half years.

“Irving helps me in so many ways, his assistance is invaluable, I couldn’t do it without him,” said Mrs. Rivera. Her husband organizes the musical playlists from many different countries. In class, he welcomes students, ascertains whether they need a chair, makes sure they sign in, gets them their hand weights, turns on the fans, and carries the oversize big boom box they purchased just for the class.

“There’s a lot of work that goes into orchestrating a successful Zumba class,” said Mrs. Rivera, who changes the class format each week, adding and subtracting dances to add color and make it more fun.  “I choreograph the movements to fit the playlist, making sure of the timing and including variety.”

The Riveras love Zumba because of its free spirit. “We welcome everyone. We never correct movements. People dance to their own rhythm,” said Mrs. Rivera.

Their Zumba class is held from 10 to 11 a.m. Thursday mornings on the third floor at the 30th Street Senior Center. New students can drop-in or call the center at 415-550-2210 for information.

A life of travel, adventures, true grit – and a good car

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Fran Roberts is still on the move, with a life that encompasses San Francisco and the East Bay.

SENIOR BEAT – In March, 1964, a 9.2 earthquake and multiple tsunamis hit Kodiak, Alaska. Fran Roberts was 38 and working there as draftsperson for the government. She was as much concerned about saving her car as her life.

“You had to have a car to get around, and I had just been to the States to buy a new Volkswagon Bug and have it shipped up there,” she said. “If my car was ruined, I’d have to wait a year to buy a new one.”

So, as Roberts was running hither and yon following military orders to get to higher ground, she was also pleading with military vehicles to help pull her car. “At one point I was sitting in my car and water came up to my chest. I thought I was going to drown.”

After the tsunamis stopped, Roberts started bailing saltwater out of her car.  “It was then that I got to work,” she said. “The VW Bug came with a packet of tools. I took out each piece of the motor, cleaned it, and laid it out in the order I removed it. When they were all cleaned, I reassembled the parts from last to first.”

Roberts succeeded in restoring her car with the same grit and determination that had defined her life until that point. “We lost our house in The Depression when our father deserted the family,” she said, “I saw my mother pick herself up and do what she had to do to keep us four kids fed and clothed.”

From earning a scholarship to a high-school boarding school to a long government career as a draftsman to owning multiple homes in the Bay Area, throughout her travels, living her life as a single woman, Roberts, 92, always saw the rainbow – not the clouds.

Her Irish blue eyes sparkle with a keen intelligence that has guided her adventures from Kentucky to Washington, D.C., Guam, Alaska and finally to San Francisco. “I kept moving to get a better job and make more money,” she said.

Getting ‘too countrified’

Roberts was born in Kentucky in 1926. Her mother’s great-great grandfather, Elder John Rice, born 1760, the first Baptist minister to be ordained in Kentucky, became the first Baptist minister of the Shawnee Run Baptist Church, about 30 miles from Lexington.

After her father’s desertion, her mother’s widowed uncle needed a housekeeper. Uncle Mitt had a grand southern farm house located about a mile from the small town of Wilmore, Ky. “For me, life on the farm was a child’s dream. I roamed the acreage of the large farm, watched the farm hands work, loved all the farm animals, and watched things grow,” Roberts said.

Even though it was the heart of the Depression, the Roberts family thrived. “We had plenty of food because we grew everything except coffee and sugar,” she said. “We gave platefuls of food to ragged men who wandered by and always had guests drop by unannounced on Sundays.”

Grade school was a one-room schoolhouse. Being unaware of the other children’s extreme poverty, Roberts thought their dress was a lark.  “I also wanted to wear burlap on my feet and adult clothing that came down to my ankles.”

But Roberts’ mother, worried her daughter was getting “too countrified,” sent her to live with an aunt in Mattoon, Ill., where she attended the fourth grade . There, she was expected to excel. “Everyone talked faster and sharper, but I was more advanced in all studies except math and music,” Roberts said. She did excel, but missed the country life.

She returned home after a year to find her mother’s circumstances had drastically changed after Uncle Mitt’s death. “My mother took any work she could get,” she said. “After being forced out of a bookkeeping job, mother went to Nicholasville, six miles away, to work as a clerk in the County Court House. She had taught herself to type.”

Roberts’ mother then got a better job translating county records from Old English and re-typing them. “There was no parent to watch over us from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., and my youngest brother became a street kid and eventually got into a lot of trouble,” she said.

Take me to the orphanage

Roberts felt overwhelmed caring for her brother and taking care of household chores. “At one point, I asked my mother to put me in an orphanage,” she said. “That didn’t go over well with the relatives. They said I hurt my mother’s feelings.”

Also bursting with ambition for a better life, Roberts was energized when she overheard a girl in her class talking about a scholarship to a girls’ boarding high school in Midway, Ky. When the girl turned the scholarship down, Roberts applied and secured her ticket out of Wilmore. “My mother didn’t want me to go because I was her helper,” said Roberts, “but my drama teacher made the case for future possibilities.”

Four years at Midway Academy gave Roberts the chance to shine. She rose to the top academically and demonstrated assertive skills as squad leader of her basketball and volleyball teams. Seeing her potential, Roberts said her teachers  advised her against taking shorthand, saying, “They’ll make a secretary out of you and that’s not your calling.”

In her senior year in 1944, government officials visited the school and selected Roberts as one of four girls to work in the Veterans’ Administration in Washington, D.C. “I was so excited,” Roberts said.

She started as a clerk in the personnel office.  She wasn’t a fast typist. But she did have some library experience, so she was assigned as an assistant in the general legal and medical reference library. “I loved being around doctors and lawyers – smart people. It was a great learning experience.”

Working her way up

She supplemented her income working nights in a movie theater and weekends in Lerner’s department store. She still found time to have fun with friends picnicking and going on bike rides.

In Washington, D.C., homeowners rented out rooms to get by and would even sleep in their basement if it freed up more space to rent. Roberts went from room to room and finally to the “luxury” of a rooming house. “At one point, I slept in a closet. Another time, I had to share a bed with another young woman.”

During her time in the Capitol, Roberts became engaged, but decided not to marry because of her chaotic family situation. “I broke that boy’s heart. In the future, I promised myself I would always tell anyone I dated that I had decided not to marry.”

At 21, her stellar work record landed her a clerking job in Guam. “I had never heard of Guam, had no idea where it was, but I wanted to make more money, and they were offering a 25 percent raise with no taxes,” she said. Her first year was not the best time in her life. “I got there with 10 cents in my pocket. I was 2,000 miles from home.”  All she was thinking about was the money. “I did what I had to do.”

Roberts started dating an engineer who taught her drafting. “I loved geometry in high school, and drafting looked like it was based on those principles,” Roberts said. They obtained permission to use the drafting office after hours, and Roberts was on her way to a new career. After her clerking contract was up, she was offered a drafting job on probation. Instead, she moved to Dayton, Ohio, to be near her mother, whose second husband had just left her. “It was my greatest desire to always take care of my mother.”

A dream job at last

Hoping to buy her mother a house, she had saved up $3,500 for a deposit. But she almost lost it thanks to an unscrupulous real estate broker. “It was then that I learned I had to toughen up and not be so naïve and trusting.” Once she settled her mother in a house, Roberts returned to Guam, completed her probation, and became a full-fledged draftsman. “I was a natural. I loved the type of work engineers did. I was welcomed into their circle. I had a new, wonderful life.”

Yet in four years, she found herself becoming restless. In 1956, she got a job in the Presidio in San Francisco drawing construction plans and wiring diagrams. After four years there, Roberts applied for and landed a draftsman job in Kodiak, Alaska, working for the Navy. She loved the work and the outdoors. She went camping and fishing. “I had a gun but never killed anything. And a friend gave her a dog, half-wolf, because she thought Roberts was lonely.

“I was lucky. Kodi was fiercely loyal and protective and saved my life when I tried to go near wild horses,” Roberts said. “Apparently, male wild horses don’t like the scent of women and they will attack. Kodi jumped up on my chest and kept pushing me away. I knew she was warning me off.”

After 13 years in Kodiak, Roberts began suffering pain in her hand that hindered her drafting abilities. So she became a realty specialist, working in the acquisition and management of property. After a year in that position, she returned to the San Francisco and snagged the one opening for a realty specialist at the Presidio. She oversaw the permit process of the use of military property by non-military personal, a movie production, for example, and handled all legal correspondence. “I needed to know Army regulations to protect the military against legal action,” she explained.

Since retiring in 1984, Roberts travels, attends exercise classes through City College San Francisco, and spends time with friends she meets in senior centers in San Francisco and in the East Bay. She lives in both places, spending the weekends in Albany. She drives her Toyota Matrix across the Bay Bridge to the Albany home that was her mother’s until her death at 95. “I also have my pickup truck in Albany so I can cart stuff for the yard.  Cars still mean so much to me.”

First affordable housing project for seniors breaks ground in Mission District

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picture of groundbreaking ceremony

From the Left to Right: Lorena Melgarejo and Ollinda Orellana (community speakers both from Faith in Action), Kevin Kilbane of Raymond James Tax Credit Fund, Rev. Norman Fong of Chinatown CDC, Karoleen Feng of MEDA, Supervisor Hillary Ronen, Fiona Hsu of Silicon Valley Bank, Kate Hartley, Director of MOHCD. Photo: Courtesy of MEDA

Projected design of the new affordable senior housing that will go up at 1296 Shotwell. (Photo courtesy of MEDA)

SENIOR BEAT – Tears and cheers greeted the speakers  at the June 20 groundbreaking ceremony for Casa Adelante–1296 Shotwell, the first, new, 100 percent affordable housing project built in the Mission District in the past decade.

When completed, the nine-story building will provide 94 units of affordable housing, with on-site supportive services: 74 apartments for low-income seniors, 19 for seniors experiencing homelessness, and one for the building manager. The project is a partnership between the Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA) and the Chinatown Community Development Center (Chinatown CDC).

The building is expected to be completed by 2020. It will also have staff offices, four rooftop terraces, landscaped garden courtyards, a spacious community room with a kitchen, 22 bicycle storage spaces, solar hot-water system, a community laundry room, and an enhanced security system.

“Finally, finally, it’s taken a long time to get here. It doesn’t get much better than this,” said District 9 supervisor Hillary Ronen. “It’s very special that this first project is for seniors who have given so much to the community and who deserve to age in dignity and safety.

More housing to come

“Housing should be a human right and we’re hell bent on making it a human right in San Francisco,” Ronen continued. “My goal is 5,000 units in the next decade.”

Olinda Orellana, a community leader and Faith in Action senior advocate who was honored for her 30 years of organizing for affordable housing, said “We deserve to live out our last days with dignity and security. We’ll continue to struggle and bring people together. This isn’t the last affordable project in our neighborhood.”

Six more affordable housing projects in the Mission are currently being evaluated—for a total of 780 units—according to Amy Beinart, a Ronen aide specializing in housing. “Some for seniors, others for families; 20 percent will be set aside for the formerly homeless,” said Beinart, who is also working with MEDA, Mission Housing Development Corporation and Mission Neighborhood Centers to find more sites.

After a blessing and dance performance by Danza Azteca Xitalli-Xoloti, MEDA Executive Director Luis Granados reminded the crowd of officials and community members gathered for the occasion that more than 8,000 Latinos have been forced from their homes in the Mission District since 2000.

“Being on a fixed, low income should not mean being displaced,” Granados said, adding that the project only came about through “lots and lots of community work. This is how MEDA and the community work, and this is how we will continue to work.”

Money for the project comes from voter-approved Prop A, the city’s Affordable Housing Fund, and the federal HOME Investment Partnerships Program. The nine-story building is also the first to seek a density bonus through the city’s Affordable Housing Bonus Program.

“This development makes the city a better place to live,” said Kate Hartley, director of the Mayor’s Office on Housing and Community Development.

Life after polio? For one busy mother and community activist, not a missed step

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Photo of Susan Suval and her granddaughters.

Susan Suval and her granddaughters Simone and Linnea.

SENIOR BEAT – From the time she contracted polio at four, Susan Suval has never let the disease that took the use of her right leg define her life.

“My mother thought she’d have to take care of me her whole life,” said Suval, now 73. “I proved her wrong.” Her mother fought to send her to public school, where Suval developed the impetus to fight for herself.

“They wanted to put me in a special education class.  My mother said, ‘It’s her leg that’s paralyzed, not her brain.’ That set them straight.”  Suval’s mother wheeled her to school in a wagon. At that time she wore a brace and used crutches.

From then on, Suval demonstrated the spitfire and grit that motivated her in school,  gave her an adventuresome spirit – and led her to marry, raise a family and become incredibly active in her community.

When her kids were young, she joined their nursery school board. That led to membership in the local PTA, then the San Francisco District PTA. Then, she turned her sights back to her Sunset District neighborhood, where she helped organize its first community coalition. In 2003, Suval was honored by The San Francisco Board of Supervisors as a “Woman Making History” from District Four. Later, “to keep from getting bored,” she joined the Sunset Community Democratic Club, becoming its president in 1998. More recently, she helped organize the Parkmerced Action Coalition.

And that’s just the headlines.

Everyone knew someone who had polio

Born in Pequot Lakes, Minn., Suval grew up in Omaha, Neb. The family, now including a son, moved there shortly after World War II so her father could work in his family’s contractor business.

Suval was easily accepted by her schoolmates. She couldn’t play sports but she could participate as scorekeeper. She could bat in softball, having another kid run the bases. She always exhibited a “can do attitude.”

In high school, Suval made a friend who also had polio. They played online games, such as the Scrabble- like “Word with Friends.”

“Everyone knew someone who had polio. It wasn’t such a big deal,” said Suval.

In 1963, Suval decided to attend a small Lutheran liberal arts college, Gustavus Adolphus in St. Peter, Minn. “From watching Perry Mason on TV, I decided I wanted to be a lawyer. My advisor just laughed at me.”

But reconnecting with some friends in Omaha, Suval decided to transfer to The University of Nebraska at Omaha, where she got a liberal arts degree. Her interests led her to take a semester of library science in graduate school. “I knew I didn’t want to be a teacher, and I didn’t want to study as hard as pre-law demanded.”

But, it was the ’60s and the adventurer bug bit her. She sought new horizons.  After considering Kansas City or Minneapolis, she settled on San Francisco, where she has been ever since. “I came in the spring of 1968. I didn’t have a clue about the 1967 Summer of Love before I arrived.”

Suval got a job as a librarian in the marketing research department of the P&O Steamship Navigation Company.  She wanted to continue her library science education, but she couldn’t afford the out-of-state tuition at the University of California- Berkeley. There weren’t any other options at that time, she said.

Meanwhile, she met her future husband, Bob, also employed at the steamship company. “He was from Brooklyn. I liked his accent. He was on the quiet side and had a great sense of humor.”

Weaving and child-rearing

Shortly after they married, in 1972, P&O moved its offices to Los Angeles. Her husband took a job with an auto glass company, and Suval started working part-time.

“I became so totally impassioned with textiles, I started working part-time so I could take weaving lessons.” Over the next 15 years, Suval mastered the art of weaving to the point where she was exhibiting and selling wearables and wall-hangings. “Just when we were a little stretched, I’d get a check from my art.”

Her son, Adam was born in 1979, and two years later her twin girls, Sarah and Rebecca. “I am sure that weaving helped me retain sanity when I was dealing with three children under three.”

By this time the Suval family was living in a rented home near Ocean Beach in the Sunset District.

As soon as her children entered the Sunset Cooperative Nursery School, Suval became board treasurer. It helped defray her children’s tuition. That was her first step toward her life-long involvement in children and youth issues and education.

Next, she joined the PTA, volunteering in the classroom and writing its newsletter. Soon, Suval was appointed to the local PTA Board where she developed several curriculum enrichment projects and secured funding grants. The project she’s most proud of was “the redesign and reorganization of the school library.”

“At one point I reached a level in PTA which I could never have reached in the business world because of no business experience,” she said. “I was so proud that the Superintendent of Schools would take my calls.”

During those years, Suval also worked on several projects with Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, an organization that supports low-income families. She served on their board until 2011, and was honored by them on their 20th anniversary.

Always something on her plate

Because she was always looking for new ways to contribute, Suval’s interest widened to her Sunset community. “I always seemed to need to have something else on my plate in addition to my family.”

Suval helped organize the Sunset District Neighborhood Coalition and has been chair from 2000 to the present. In an effort to organize the Sunset’s large, ethnically diverse population, the coalition established the first Community Festival in 1994. Suval was co-coordinator of the first festival and continues to work on the annual event.

“It was the skills I developed with the PTA that gave me the confidence to contribute to the development of the Sunset District Neighborhood Coalition,” she said.

Suval was also involved with a youth-serving cooperative that evolved into the Sunset Neighborhood Beacon Center and the Sunset Youth Services. She was also on the development board of NeighborNet, a communication strategy for the southwestern communities in San Francisco.

Suval thinks one of the reasons she became a community organizer was because she wanted “just to get the job done.” Her mother had volunteered with PTA and in her local hospital gift shop. Her strong Midwestern sense of self-reliance kept her from going to an orthopedist for years. She avoided wheelchairs and devised her own method of using crutches: A regular crutch under her right arm and a Canadian forearm crutch under her left arm kept her right arm free.

A husband’s health challenges

It wasn’t until her husband died that she used a wheel chair for the first time. “Why didn’t I use this year’s ago?” she wondered.

It was her can-do attitude that helped her through his death and other later life challenges. He started having serious heart problems in his 50s and died in 2002 at age 60. In 2007, her landlord tried to evict her from her home of 26 years. She fought and won that time, but was evicted at the end of 2009.

It was then that Suval moved to Park Merced, where she lives now. A roommate from San Francisco State helps with the rent. But as per past performance, she became active in forming the Park Merced Action Coalition, a resident group, and becoming vice-president.

In March, her independent living was interrupted by a fall she took getting off her bed. “I am so happy to have friends and family to count on,”Suval said.

Expect to see her back soon in her electric wheelchair escorting her granddaughters to the neighborhood playground.

Fifth-graders learn what it’s like be older – by interviewing seniors

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picture of 5th graders and seniors at the Friends School storytelling event

Fifth-graders and seniors at the Friends School storytelling event.

SENIOR BEAT – Once a week, a group of fifth graders visits some of the seniors who live at Valencia Gardens, down the street from their school, for games and conversation.

“People think that seniors are cranky, grumpy and mean. They’re not,” said student Jaxon Howard. “It was special to hear them talk about their lives.”

That’s just the kind of lesson the San Francisco Friends School hopes to impart. Learning in and from the community is an essential component of the curriculum at the Quaker school. Eighth-graders study homelessness and volunteer at St. Boniface Catholic Church. Fifth-graders explore aging: what it feels like to be older – problems with seeing, hearing, pains, and loss of mobility.

“The idea is to develop empathy and connection. Quaker education is all about relationships and developing connection,” said Guybe Slangen, director of community engagement.

So it was that in mid-April, a group of seniors from Valencia Gardens and other community groups sat down to be interviewed by students. In May, each student shared an elder’s story in “performances” in the school auditorium. The senior subjects were given front row seats, while parents, friends and some first-graders fanned out behind.

“I’m surprised that the seniors opened up to tell their stories to people they didn’t know instead of keeping them inside,” said fifth-grader Eliza Kingsland. “Hearing feedback from the seniors who came to our performance was very special.”

A story is a gift

The students dramatized lives filled with pets and friends, siblings and families crowded into one room; school and work, scary adventures and funny events. They told of being Jewish and hiding out during World War II, running from bombs in Europe and Japan, and having to leave your home country; of fires and explosions, not having enough food, and the deaths of friends and family.

“I wanted them to learn to balance the fun and happy moments with the sad moments, and to see how others handled problems,” said Jon Burnett, who has taught drama at the school for the past 16 years. “By fifth grade, they’re still very enthusiastic, very spirited, but they’re also starting to make some advanced choices. They’re going deeper and bigger in their thinking.”

The students had practiced their interviewing and note-taking skills and developed follow-up questions. In the weeks preceding the production. Burnett helped them flush out the stories. Together, they chose sound effects, costumes and props. “Stories make good drama, you remember good stories,” he said.

“It’s all about sharing stories with the people you interviewed,” added Slangen. “When someone gives you a story it’s a gift. It shows respect and gratitude when they give it to you and when you give it back.”

“I thoroughly enjoyed those kids,” said Robin Larsen, a  St. Francis Square resident who attended. “They were smart, polite, curious, good senses of humor, and already a few want to be journalists, which warms my heart.”

Advocates rally for justice for the vulnerable in City budget

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Justice budget rally at city hallSENIOR BEAT – June is budget negotiation time at City Hall. On June 18, after receiving a draft budget from the mayor, the Budget and Finance Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors invited comments from the community.  Activists making up the Budget Justice Coalition rallied on City Hall steps to highlight the need for increased funding for for the poor, the homeless, seniors and people with disabilities. The coalition is a broad based collaboration of more than 30 community-based and labor organizations serving impoverished people working towards a City budget that prioritizes poor  communities in San Francisco.  Inside City Hall, advocates were allowed one minute to plead their case. They  testified on the need for increased funding for homeless services, rental subsidies for seniors and people with disabilities, and food programs. Funds were requested for employment programs for seniors, after-school programs, free summer school at City College, and pedestrian safety. After a representative for the senior community choirs program finished speaking, 30 choir members rose and serenaded the supervisors and audience.  (Photos by Mary Hunt)