Lunar New Year
The OMI Senior Center will hold a Lunar New Year celebration on Tuesday, February 27. The celebration will feature a many-course luncheon, a lion dance and a raffle. Tickets are $17.00. Contact the OMI Senior Center at 65 Beverly Street for more information: 415-334-5550.
Chair Yoga at Cayuga
Cayuga Community Connectors has begun offering chair yoga. The class includes stretching, breathing, meditation and T’ai Chi, and meets on the 1st & 3rd Fridays of the month from 11-12. A Monday 6-7 pm class may be offered in the future.
Patti Spaniak, who coordinates the Cayuga program, said they decided to offer chair yoga because some of their members were having difficulty keeping up with the Always Active exercise class. Members of the class say the exercises make them feel invigorated. A member, with MS, said she has difficulty walking home after the regular exercise class, but she walks home with ease after the chair yoga class.
The class is free, and is accepting new participants. Contact Patti Spaniak for more information: 646-409-7775 or pspaniak@me.com.
DAAS Website
The Department of Aging and Adult Services (DAAS) has a new website: sfdaas.org.
While the site is still a “work in progress,” it does include descriptions and applications for many of their services. When I explored it, I could not find a listing for the Community Connectors programs or for the eight senior choirs so strongly supported by participants at the 11 community forums held last fall.
The site solicits feedback. Please check it out and let the Department know whether you found it useful.
The DAAS Budget
The budget development process has begun for City agencies. Although the City’s budget projections show a strong economy, revenue growth has slowed while expenditures continue to increase. In light of what is seen as a projected deficit, the Mayor asked all departments to reduce their General Fund budgets by 2.5 percent in each budget year. Check our website for updates: inglesidelight.com.
Charter Amendment to Address Set-Asides
Supervisors Aaron Peskin (district 3) and Katy Tang (district 4) recently proposed a charter amendment to substantially change the function and intent of the set-asides overwhelmingly approved by San Francisco voters over the past twenty plus years. These changes would impact funding for 15 city services, including the Dignity Fund (services for seniors), public libraries, schools, children’s services, parks, muni/public transit, cultural institutions, open space and housing.
The proposal would make it easier for the Controller’s Office to “claw back” funds that have been allocated but could not be spent because the contract was signed so late in the fiscal year that the nonprofit could not effectively spend the funds. Sadly, this is a too common condition in most city departments.
The proposal will be heard by the Rules Committee on Wednesday, January 24. The members of the Rules Committee include Ahsha Safai (district 11), Norman Yee (district 7) and Sandra Fewer (district 1).
Volunteer Who Makes the Excelsior a Better Place
“Kids are my thing,” explained Donna Robblee, a volunteer with the Felton Institute’s Foster Grandparents program. “If kids don’t get a good start, they’ll never catch up. I enjoy helping kids get that chance. It’s neat when she see a child’s face when he gets it, when he starts raising his hand.”
The Felton Foster Grandparents program places seniors, 55 and older, in public school classrooms to assist teachers. Volunteers can work as few or as many hours a week as they want. Robblee, who was placed at Monroe Elementary School in the Excelsior, volunteers full time. “It’s a good place to work. Monroe is a happy school. There’s no bullying, it’s very diverse, we celebrate everyone.”
Robblee began volunteering for the Foster Grandparents program six years ago when she lived in Las Vegas. After closing her beauty shop and moving to San Francisco to be near her daughter and family, Robblee registered for Felton’s Foster Grandparents program.
“The thing I like about Felton,” which Robblee refers to as “my Felton,” is that “they’re there for you.” They help with the enrollment and placement process, and hold monthly meetings on issues that seniors should know about: handling stress, hearing aids, liver diseases, and so on. Tieu Ly, who manages the Felton program, considers the monthly meetings an opportunity to “introduce our volunteers to what they would learn about if they attended a senior center instead of volunteering.”
Ly wants prospective volunteers to know that their program pays a small hourly stipend and recently began offering paid time off.
“We have a memorandum of understanding with 20 pre-schools and nine elementary schools. The geography and language demands can make it difficult to make a good match, but we’re always looking for volunteers,” Ly said.
“You’ve got to remember,” Robblee said, “nobody can be good at everything, but if you find something that the child is good at you’ve opened the door to success.”
To volunteer or for more information, contact Tieu Ly at 415-751-9786.