2009 Day of Caring

United Way of Kern County unites the local business community and non-profit agencies in many different ways to benefit Bakersfield and our county. One of these ways is Day of Caring when volunteers from the business community join forces with the board members and staffs of the non-profit agencies to accomplish any task the agencies cannot accomplish on their own.

Day of Caring this year is September 12. Senior Serve has been paired with AERA Energy. They will be sending 30 or more volunteers to Senior Serve and 15 or more of our board and staff members will lead teams to do calling on our clients in the community. In three hours on that morning, hundreds of seniors will be called on, encouraged, given a small present, and enjoyed.

The morning starts with a wonderful breakfast at 7:30 at Stramler Park. By 8:30 our volunteers and staff will come to the Senior Serve office to be organized and trained. During the next couple of hours, each team will make three or four visits. At noon everybody will return to the office for a quick lunch and debriefing. The endeavor always turns out to be exciting and fulfilling as well as extremely helpful in keeping up with our senior clients.

Here are a few images from the 2009 Day of Caring.

Our Lastest Newsletter...

Our latest newsletter is now available.

Inside this Issue:

• Sylvester
  5 years ago, Sylvester was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic. Today, he goes to a doctor every two weeks for a shot to control this condition. His greatest fear is that he will forget the appointment, return to acting out in public, and end up in 3B at Kern General Hospital.

• Congratulations!
  Birth announcements from the growing families of our staff members.

• United Way of Kern County
  The annual Day of Caring is coming on September 12, 2009.

• Homelessness...Part 2
  John Marshall writes about the history of homelessness in the United States as well as the needs that have emerged today.

Download our Newsletter here.

Off to Fresno...

Today, John Marshall made his way up to central California to continue working toward setting up a branch of Senior Serve in the city of Fresno. His first stop was to visit one of our clients who recently lost their mother and to check in on how the family was doing.

Then he resumed his drive to Fresno. Today was an important day as a Steering Committee and new leadership began taking shape. We are excited about the future of Senior Serve being a representative payee agency for this wonderful city located in the Central Valley of California.

More to come...

Annual Summer Fun

Here are some photos of our time last weekend with the staff and Senior Serve Board and volunteers. Thanks to our Board Chairman, Ed Taylor and his wife for opening their lovely home to everyone.

The afternoon was full of swimming, games and good food.

Annual Field Trip

Recently, on a Friday, our staff took our annual field trip. This morning as part of our staff meeting, we sat down together to discuss what we learned and to share pictures, drawings, brochures and information and special moments we experienced on our field trip.

Each year we like to go and visit some of clients, see the places they are living and even visit potential residences or services to check things out before we begin referring clients to them. This year we decided to divide up into four vehicles and have each group of our staff go on a mission. Their mission simple, but we had "scavenger hunt" type challenges to accomplish as well.

Each group or vehicle met first at Wells Fargo, our banking institution for all of clients. We simple wanted to see some of the services they provide for our clients and even touch base about challenges the staff at Well's Fargo faces servicing so many from Senior Serve. 

Then we divided up into our groups and received our flourescent orange sheet of paper. Our instructions for the rest of the day's events. 

We read, "You are on a mission. A mission to discover the facilities, the clients you have been working with on a daily basis, live and breathe. When you enter your vehicle your assignments begins." 

On the sheet were also 8 rules to abide by:

1) You will be asked to perform missions at each location and upon completion of the mission you will be told where you are going next and what mission you will perform next. (You cannot go on if  you do not complete the mission-time is ticking.)

2) The driver is not allowed to speed.

3) You must not be rude and say to the driver, "rapido".

4) You must learn as much information about the facilities as possible (there will be a test).

5) Get a business card from all of the places you will be visiting.

6) Make sure you stay on schedule!!!!!

7) There is a prize at the end so you want to be the first one to complete all of your missions.

8) See you back at the shop.

Overall, as we discussed, the different types of challenges we received at each place the groups visited was fun and informative. Some of the tasks in our missions were to take pictures, gather brochures or printed materials about the places we were visiting, draw or sketch residences, discover the last room number at a motel we visited and even sing a  song with a client of ours.

We're looking forward to next year. Gleaning knowledge for our clients and having fun at the same time is a GREAT way to have a field trip.

Here our a couple of pictures from our time together.

Elder Connection takes part in the 12th Annual Elder Abuse Prevention Conference, "Domestic Violence in Later Life"

We took part in this important conference held in Bakersfield, California. Here is an article from The Bakersfield Californian or link to the article here.

Raising community awareness

BY PAUL ROZELL AND THE REV. STEVE VINSON, Contributing writers

Experts believe that up to 80 percent of seniors embrace deep spiritual values as they draw closer to the end of life. Unfortunately, one of the tactics of abusers of the elderly is to ridicule their belief system to humiliate and develop undue influence over them. Often the victim is not allowed to go to church or contact anyone from the faith community.

The 12th annual Elder Abuse Prevention Conference, "Domestic Violence in Later Life," was held Wednesday with 175 attendees from various disciplines, including clergy and three very eager students from Liberty High School. This was close to a 60 percent increase in attendance over 2008, when 110 participated. At least one spiritual leader present said the conference increased his awareness by helping him identify the signs and symptoms of both physical and financial abuse, and by teaching him what services are available once the abuse is identified.

Speakers shared moving stories of abused elderly persons, including one of a woman who was battered by her husband earlier in life, and by her daughter as a senior.

The conference was designed not only to increase awareness on elder abuse but also to challenge the community to get involved in reporting suspected abuse and in developing safety net services for Kern County's abused elderly. In keeping with that goal, Adult Protective Services plans to begin an informational outreach to Kern's faith community in the coming months to help congregation leaders and members identify elder abuse and the prevention resources available. To report suspected elder abuse, call Adult Protective Services at 868-1006 or 800-277-7866.

Paul Rozell is program director of Protective Services with Kern County Aging and Adult Services. The Rev. Steve Vinson is executive pastor at Canyon Hills Assembly of God Church.

6th Annual Clay Shoot

We just finished this year's clay shoot fundraiser and it was a GREAT success raising funds for Senior Serve. Plus it was a good time for those who participated this year. As Always it was a "fun raiser" for us as well as fundraiser. Again, we found ourselves enjoying "Five Dogs", the shooting range that hosts us each year, in Woody, California.

Here are a few photos of the day:

Ready, Aim...Fire!

This was lunch!


Having too much fun on the ATV!


I wonder how this happened?



We are so very thankful to all our sponsors (click to enlarge)
and to all who showed up to shoot.

See you next year!

If you were not able to make it this year, please join us next year!
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