Cultivating connections to help seniors and people with disabilities age and thrive at home.
Friends, Family and Co-workers gathered at the CLC office to remember and to celebrate the work of Judy Auda and how she help inspire us through the years. I hope you will take a few minutes to view.
See some of her past projects on a previous blog post.
One of the earliest contributors to the Community Living Campaign was Judy Auda, who passed away on May 25 after a long struggle following a major stroke. We want to celebrate her works with us and with a number of community organizations along the way. For CLC, she helped ran our first computer training program, developed our annual events, created the Seeds of Hope Garden party journey, and organized several City Hall events for us with support from the Dept. of Disability and Aging, including the Alzeheimers and Dementia Summit, the Health Aging Summit, and the Aging and Disability and Technology Summit. Plus so many fun activities and adventures along the way. There were civic events that she helped organize and some mementos are included in the slide show below. Judy was always a kid at heart and was gifted in terms of thinking up fun community events for kids young and old. Think of the fun event with balloons, the “belly laugh”, and kites flown from hilltops across the city. She organized 49 Night at the SF Zoo, the 50 year anniversary at Fort Mason and it USO club. She helped organize the Golden Gate Bride Centennial with a special plaza to mark the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge. And because we wanted to be fun like Judy, we stood on street corners across the City and all sang the San Francisco song that Jeanette MacDonald made famous at the appointed time. And oh yes, there was the Pacific Ha, an organized minute of laughter that stretched the length of the West Coast. Her imagination and attention to detail made her our pied piper for community engagement and we’re not sure what we will do without her.
Thanks to the Coalition of Agencies Serving the Elderly (CASE) and support from the Department of Disability and Aging Services, a series of articles that highlight how 8 organizations transformed to meet the needs of their participants once the Pandemic changed all our lives. Judy Goddess was commissioned to interview each organization and write a short narrative with pictures to tell the story of how each organization “pivoted” their programming and their outreach during Covid.
Read about CLC here as well as all of the organizations profiled.
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
For yet another year, and perhaps a year when needed most, the communities gathered in the Bayview, OMI, and at the City College Parking lot to distribute more than 5,600 turkeys and bags of groceries to seniors and families across their communities. The events in the OMI, Bayview, and Park Merced on December 8 were organized by the CLC Food Networks, lead by Deb Glen and Chester Williams, with great support for turkeys and fixing from Glide. The CLC teams have been meeting weekly throughout the pandemic without missing a beat to bring healthy food and staples to over 230 households with older adults and adults with disabilities. The Feeding 5000 event at the City College parking lot was organized by the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) in partnership with the San Francisco African American Faith-Based Coalition and other local community-based organizations hosted a holiday giveaway event called “Feeding 5000” on December 11 via a drive-through service at City College of San Francisco with strict COVID-19 safety procedures in place.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, one in four San Francisco residents were at risk of hunger due to income shortage. With an increased number of residents out of work, the number of people struggling to afford enough nutritious food is also increasing and the City’s nonprofit partners have reported a surge in demand for food. In this effort, SFDPH is joined by
This collaborative effort
The sixth annual Good Neighbor Award Event brought us together to celebrate the kindness and good work of some special neighbors. If you missed the event or just want to relive, you can view the video of Good Neighbor Summer activities , meet the first round of honorees and the second round of honorees. Or gosh, just sit back and view the event in it entirety.
It has been a good summer so far and we are delighted each time we see old friends and new acquaintances in person. We have been walking, excercising, practicing yoga, doing improv, celebrating birthdays, visiting friends in hospitals and assisted living, honoring those that have passed, standing strong for justice and so much more.
Here a some snapshots of summer activities from August
And from July – stay tuned more to come.Resiliency is buoyancy. It’s like those buoys you see off the coast, battered by powerful waves in storms, but they just don’t sink. They stay afloat. And they signal to others the line between safety and danger.
Resiliency is one of the qualities we’ve come to admire and appreciate so acutely in the last year. As May is Older Americans Month, we’re spotlighting a couple of Community Living Campaign staff members who have done a great job of demonstrating strength and resilience and what that means.
Nicky Trasvina, one of our Community Connectors, felt that some of the best examples of resiliency are the often unseen, underappreciated essential workers. They continued to step up and keep San Francisco running while most of us were able to shelter in place.
Another great example of resiliency are community leaders, like the handful in the Mission who provided food to about 3,000 families each week.
“This continues as an amazing, tremendous undertaking by local leaders in that community, including Roberto Hernandez, Valerie Tolier, Tracy Brown, Ray Ponce and others,” Nicky said. “They created the space and tapped all their resources to get hundreds of pounds of food donated each week. It was such an abundance of food that would have otherwise gone to waste.”
She’s grateful for the opportunity to play a part in the operation, picking up leftover food supplies from donors to be distributed by other volunteers.
Nicky also sought ways to help neighbors and friends in small ways, like bringing them things they needed.
Acting generously also relieved some of the feelings of helplessness so many of us felt. So she also gave financially to some organizations she cares about, following the old adage to “put your money where your mouth is!”
And through it all, one of her primary sources of strength has been prayer.
“Depending on prayer gives me a lot of strength,” Nicky said. “And I think this helps others. I think people appreciate it when they know someone is praying for them. So when I say I’m going to pray for you, I just stop and say the prayer right then.”
She’s also found more connection by reaching out to old friends, neighbors and former students since she was a college adviser. And not just by phone and text.
“It’s not unusual to find me standing out in my front yard talking to people who go by,” Nicky said. “I feel it’s part of my role in getting our neighbors connected. And it’s fun! I’m like the stereotypical old lady looking out through her blinds watching everything, but people like it!”
Read another profile of our Community Connector Laura Atkins.
Books transport us to another world — another time or locale, real or imagined.
And reading keeps minds sharp and help young minds get stronger.
Jim and Kathryn Rato
So what better way to build community, provide some escape while sheltering in place, and entertain and teach than sharing books?
Those are the goals behind the growing number of little libraries that Community Living Campaign has helped neighbors put up in their front yards around San Francisco. There are now 14 of these little libraries, where people can borrow books for free or donate books they no longer need — new or used — for others to enjoy.
Glenda Hope, in Cayuga, first read about the idea online and then began noticing them here and there but not in her neighborhood.
“I thought it would be a great way both to share books but also to disseminate information about Cayuga Community Connectors,” she said. It’s proven to be both on her street, which sees a lot of foot traffic near the BART station.
One of our Community Connectors, Patti Spaniak, asked some other neighbors if they’d like to host a little library in front of their homes, and CLC and the San Francisco Public Library provided the libraries. Then, we bought art kits from Etsy and made it a neighborhood project to decorate the boxes before installing them.
Kiki DeKat and Tyler Davidson
For the box in front of Spaniak’s house, installed in 2018, they hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony. It included a community reading of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.
“It was so much fun for all of us!” she said. “We had children and older adults. We also read some funny pieces and kids read from children’s books.”
As the number of little libraries grew, the donations poured in by the boxful. Our participants also picked up books from the library. Donations are not only in English but also in Chinese, Tagalog and other languages.
“We received such wonderful donations, including current best sellers and books in mint condition,” Spaniak said.
Besides swapping books, the libraries have proven to bring joy to those who witness visitors. A few senior neighbors near the little libraries said they love looking out the window and seeing the action. They like seeing someone timidly looking at what books are available or dropping off new choices for others to enjoy.
Besides books, some people leave flyers about other activities or news in the neighborhood, Hope said. She even found some “thank you for this library” notes left in the box.
One said, “I have so enjoyed seeing what treasures I might find in this little library. I am moving away and will miss those finds. Maybe I will be able to put up my own box. Thank you for doing this.”
Thank you to everyone who installed little libraries in front of their homes for the neighborhood to enjoy:
Bob CappaOne of the beautiful aspects of the pandemic has been seeing people’s creativity come out. In finding solutions and new ways to do things. Creativity in art and using our personal abilities to help others get through in so many small ways.
Community Living Campaign has continued beautifying neighborhoods while keeping everyone involved safe and healthy. One of those projects has been brightening up the stairway in Cayuga that extends Naglee Street.
Many neighbors have, over time, painted fun designs on the risers and most recently installed mosaics.
“During shelter in place, working on the stairway mosaic has been a bright light during dark times and an emblem of our resilience,” said Chris Dillon, a longtime neighborhood resident and president of the Cayuga Improvement Association.
It’s been quite the transformation from an unsightly, unsafe-feeling stairway , said Patti Spaniak, our Community Connector for the neighborhood. Older adults avoided using it even though it’s a great shortcut to Pacific Super.
Working closely with the Cayuga Improvement Association, we secured grants from Excelsior Collaborative Community Grants to paint a few murals. We got local seniors’ input on all the themes and installations. We scheduled community cleaning, hand-rail painting and weeding projects, often with the help of San Francisco Public Works. The Supervisor’s office also supported the project.
Seniors also painted the 30-stair risers, including some with scenes from Sponge Bob and Nemo that children like to try to find.
More recently, the artist of the Kenney Alley project nearby, Kim Jensen, completed the mosaic project. The designs also reflect Demi Braceros, the artist who carved many statues in Cayuga Playground.
What’s more, other similar neighborhood art projects are being considered.
