The Senior Scene

David Droge, Graduation Advisor at Lincoln High School in Tacoma sees a wonderful opportunity for senior citizens and others to give something back to their community and have fun doing it.

Public schools are facing tough times and Lincoln High School, located on the east side of Tacoma, is in a high poverty area.

Droge came upon a wonderful program that links volunteers with students for a one on one tutoring experience that has proven to be extremely beneficial – to both students and the volunteers as well.

Droge said he and a group wanted to develop a community writing center in Tacoma.  “A place where there could be tutoring and writers could come,” modeled after the successful 826 Valencia program started in San Francisco. That program was started by a man named Dave Eggers.

In 2000, Eggers lived in Brooklyn and was busy burning the midnight oil writing a novel. That left many daylight hours open for him to pursue other activities.

Eggers had what he called “a massive group of people I knew, writers, graduate students, journalists, that all had flexible day hours and an interest in English work. Everybody I knew had an interest in the written word,” he said in a 2008-taped speech given at a TED conference (TED is an online global community encompassing people from technology, entertainment and design worlds.)

An idea began to form and when he moved to San Francisco, he rented a building where writers and editors could work. They noticed at 2:30 every afternoon students would wander the streets in front of their publishing business. Eggers thought he could partner these students with the journalists on site in a tutoring format.

The group put their heads together, set up an area for tutoring in the front of their publishing business, and soon students began flooding into the building right after school was out every day.

“There was something psychological happening,” Eggers said. “We had a publishing company in back, and it was all a creative endeavor.  The kids were modeling their behavior from the adults and there was a lot of cross pollination.”

Volunteers worked with the students and got them to finish their homework before they left the center. That left family and fun time for the rest of the evening, and the students felt wonderful about their accomplishments.

“We started with 12 volunteers and now we have 1400,” said Eggers.

With this in mind, Droge is working hard to mirror the success of 826 Valencia right here in Pierce County.

Droge said that 35 to 40 hours of tutoring in one academic year can result in a full year’s advancement in reading level for students.

“Wow,” he said, “That is pretty powerful. So you sit down and figure out how many weeks in a school year and that turns out to be one hour a week for volunteers.”
The Find An Hour program has already helped Lincoln High School students reach the highest percentage of all the high school students in Tacoma that passed the end-of-course exams in algebra.

Droge said this volunteer effort is gaining ground and getting Find An Hour some national recognition for achieving the kind of results that charter schools receive, but within a public school setting.

“Some of these kids just plain don’t know how good they are,” said Eggers in his 2008 speech. “You can tell them. We hope you will join us.”

Droge and his group are seeing an opportunity to move to the next level. “In a lean budget time, we have a lot of human capital here,” he said.  “People who are willing to devote themselves to educational excellence.”

Droge said they teamed up with the City Council and they passed a Resolution in October. The goal, said Droge, is to find 500 new tutors and mentors this year. They are just beginning a series of orientation meetings.

“Try to find an hour in your week,” said Droge, who is part of the citywide coalition, “to work one-on-one with a student in Tacoma.”

More information can be found at the Find An Hour website at: http://findanhour.org.
“When a caring adult spends just one hour of time per week with a child or teen over the course of a school year, two lives can be changed–theirs and yours,” says the website.

Droge is in the process of reaching out to Senior Activity Centers to get volunteers. Anyone interested can contact Droge at (253) 255 3810.

In 2010, the staff at East Main Animal Hospital in Puyallup, in an effort to unite rescued pets with loving homes, formed Sunny Sky’s Animal Rescue.

Sunny Sky’s is the non-profit arm of East Main Animal Hospital and under that umbrella, a senior pet adoption program will commence around the first of the year.

Volunteer Linnaea Pagni Mittelstadt said this is a program that Dr. Illina Berton, owner of East Main Animal Hospital, has wanted to get going for a long time. “Now that they have the non profit status,” said Mittelstadt, “we are anxious to get it going.”

Often senior pets are the last ones to be adopted and so the goal of the new program is to link those pets with senior citizens.

Many seniors don’t want to own a large dog or a rambunctious puppy, so matching pets with seniors who have common lifestyles and energy levels makes perfect sense.

Mittelstadt helped get the 501(c)3 status. “I have some grant writing experience and this status is a whole different ballgame,” she said, adding that now the group can apply for some grant funding and will be able to accept donations that are tax-free.

Mittelstadt describes Dr. Berton as a Mother Teresa. “She would take all the animals in if she could squash them into that building,” she said.
East Main Animal Hospital is a friendly, busy place with cats wandering throughout and a gate in front of the door to keep them safely inside.  Realizing the importance of pets to senior citizens, the hospital offers a 10 percent discount to seniors who are 60 and over.

Dr. Berton’s goal is to eventually waive any adoption fees annual vaccination fees, as well as provide some food and services for seniors adopting pets. “A lofty goal,” said Mittelstadt.

Saying that these adoptions would be a good match, Dr. Berton added that the hospital gets a lot of small pets from a shelter in California that has a high kill rate, and these smaller animals could be a good fit for senior citizens.

The hospital is currently applying for a grant with the Dugan Foundation that will provide some funds to use as a base so the Hospital can offer follow-up care.

“Older animals often require more medical care and if seniors are on a limited income, that can be a problem,” said Berton.
Manager of Multi Care Celebrate Seniority Elizabeth Nelson agrees with Berton and said that her group would be happy to work with the adoption program and help introduce seniors to the advantages of adopting an older pet.

“We are on the cusp right now,” she said, “but we have talked about ways we can partner together.”

One of the ideas being tossed around is an opportunity for seniors from Multi Care Celebrate Seniority to help walk dogs, thus freeing up volunteers at the hospital for other duties.

Nelson said she knows how owning a pet can benefit the senior population and how the companionship and opportunity for more exercise can extend lives of both the pets and their owners, by raising their spirits and keeping active.

Jim Valley has taught kids all over the world, but he calls Gig Harbor his home.  Born in Tacoma and raised in Seattle, Valley has a life-long love affair with the arts, music, kids and gardens.  And Jim Valley has always loved rock and roll.

He learned to play the piano by ear in the 9th grade and then taught himself to play the guitar.  One friend got a set of drums for Christmas, another buddy played the sax and another had a guitar but didn’t know how to play it. “He just sort of beat on it,” said Valley.

Valley wrote his first song “Cassandra” while in junior high school.  One night the group, called Vince Valley and his Chain Gang, was playing a gig at a junior high sock hop and, as Valley tells the story, “I’m playing the piano, this guy is up there with his acoustic guitar beating on it and the drummer and sax player were playing and I realized we were lacking something in our band; it was an electric guitar –so I bought one.”

He says now he regrets not taking advantage of the month of free lessons that came with the guitar due to his bias against country music at the time, telling the shop owner, “I’m going to learn how to play like Elvis.”

Valley bought a guitar book, taught himself how to play and the rest, as they say, is history.

Soon he moved from his spot as the piano player to playing guitar.

The band, which was by then called The Viceroys, earned $60 for their first dance. They became popular in Seattle and played a number of venues over the next four years.

In 1963, having recorded an instrumental called “Granny’s Pad,” they hit pay dirt when it became a huge Northwest hit. The Viceroys became a popular band in the Northwest, along with the Wailers, the Frantics and Little Bill and the Bluenotes.

Later Valley joined Paul Revere and the Raiders and they packed the house wherever they performed. They appeared on the Smother Brothers TV show and at age 23, Valley found he was a teen idol.

Later he began his teaching career, traveling internationally and helping kids learn more about friendships through poetry and song writing

Valley still helps kids discover their imagination, using themes focused on friendship, the environment and self-esteem. In 1983 he recorded his first children’s album “Rainbow Planet” and received the Parent’s Choice award.

Valley has settled down a bit from his rock and roll days, but he still loves music. He also loves gardens.  His home, on the water in Gig Harbor, demonstrates his love of flowers and outdoor spaces.  The gardens are extensive and beautiful with huge zinnias, larkspur, cardoon and perennial lobelia, roses and tons of trees and fragrant mock orange.

Originally built in 1898, the house was once a grocery store, with folks coming by boat to stock up on supplies.  Valley has remodeled the house, but parts of the old store and all of its rich history still live and breathe beneath new walls and roof.

The interior of Valley’s home reflects his love of music with a wall of guitars and masks from all over the world.

In June, Valley’s home was one of the stops on the Gig Harbor Garden Tour. Nine hundred visitors wandered through Valley’s lush gardens and were thrilled with all the little nooks and crannies in his garden area, with spots to sit and rest a while.

Outside Valley’s back door sits a statute of Saraswati, the goddess of music and wisdom watching over it all, blessing and guarding the beautiful home and gardens.