Please join us at the Santa Clarita Valley Committee on Aging Corporation’s 16th Annual Wine Auction Fundraiser for our Home-Delivered Meals Program to be held at Le Chene French Cuisine and on the estate of Terry and Brenda Beeler in Saugus.
Your presence and participation is essential to us and to the more than 700 senior households who will receive this service this fiscal year. Home-Delivered Meals are designed to serve those seniors and younger adults who by virtue of frailty, chronic illness or other profound conditions cannot meet their own nutritional needs. In most cases, our Home-Delivered Meal recipient is a homebound senior who lives alone, is disabled and is older than 80 years of age.
Our community is to be congratulated that collectively, through this special fundraiser, originated by Mayor Emeritus Jo Anne Darcy and Chef-Restaurateur Juan Alonso, you have given the SCV Senior Center the means to provide these services to our seniors whenever a need rises. In other communities, literally a senior passes away or is institutionalized before the next senior in need advances to the front of the line and can receive this vital service of enhanced independence. In nearby communities, this wait is often up to a year or more.
In Santa Clarita, if a senior citizen is referred to us from an adult child, a hospital discharge planner, an elderly spouse, caregiver or just a concerned acquaintance, a process is initiated within 24 hours that brings together a bundle of services wherein our seniors are provided with options that truly create positive outcomes and an enhanced quality of life. Our older and frailer seniors are our friends, our neighbors, our loved ones; and, literally all of us have known, know, or will know someone in need. Sometimes it’s just a helping hand and often it is a lifeline that lasts for years.
On the auspicious occasion of our 16thAnnual Classic Wine Benefit Auction Event, we must raise funds for the homebound and fulfill our promise that our seniors will get the assistance they need when they need it, we salute John Shaw of Saugus who symbolizes our success and our seniors who only need a helping hand.
John Shaw is my neighbor and my friend of 19 years. John exemplifies the challenges of senior hood and his story demonstrates our community’s resources that are needed to ensure quality of life for everyone on the aging continuum.
John Shaw moved to Saugus with his wife and two kids in 1972. He was a middle-aged man, a veteran of the Army Air Corp., and working for H.R. Textron as a Mechanical Engineer. Six years ago, in the middle of a successful retirement, his wife Eleanor suffered a debilitating stroke that left her unable to care for herself and robbed her of her faculties that included memory impairment. John was thrust into the role of caregiver. For two years, John provided the day-to-day care for his wife creating the tremendous stress associated with complete responsibility for another’s welfare and care giving and took a resultant toll on John’s own health. It was not long thereafter that John and his children had to make the difficult decision to place his wife and their mother in assisted living. That was four years ago and Eleanor still resides and receives care in Jennifer’s Home, a local Board and Care.
John began to adjust to living alone and made daily trips to visit his wife keeping his devoted relationship viable for a marriage that was approaching their 60th wedding anniversary. Late one evening John fell in his driveway, calling for help for 45 minutes. His calls were heeded by neighbors who assisted him, and who then called his son, Gordon, and daughter-in-law, Kathy. With hospitalization it was determined that John had seriously injured his ribs and spine. John’s daughter, Marilyn, became a long-distance caregiver driving from the Long Beach area several times a week.
The Senior Center provided assistance through Care Management, Home-Delivered Meals, and Respite Services. John also spent time in an assisted-living facility to further recuperate and after three months returned to his home under the watchful eye of his daughter and the Senior Center’s services. Long-distance care-giving required additional assistance that was provided by Miles McNamara, owner and operator of Comfort Keepers In-Home Care, a Home Health Care agency. John and his daughter, Marilyn, credit the SCV Senior Center, Comfort Keepers, and Mary Jane Homes for a continuum of care that was bringing John back to independence. Roughly, a year later John lost sight in one eye and had to give up driving for a long period of time. He had to depend on both the City’s and the SCV Senior Center’s transportation services to continue his daily visits to Eleanor, his beloved wife.
Today, John is 83 years of age, lives independently and utilizes only one of our Home-Based Care services to assist him around the house. In the neighborhood, we have our routines and protocols for John, which now includes the opening of his drapes in the morning till evening, letting us all know he is okay if we don’t see each other directly. In addition, John also utilizes the Lifeline service that notifies his children and many of us in the neighborhood simultaneously if he has a problem. John Shaw, a participant of the SCV Senior Center, is a shining example of many of our seniors who are cared for by a loving and supportive family and on occasion and only for temporary periods, draws on the resources of the SCV Senior Center that allows him to meet the challenges of aging. For others, these services are provided for extended periods of time, even years. In either scenario, it is a lifeline that provides benefits without measure.
Sometimes its just a helping hand, often it is the primary lifeline that keeps our older and more frail senior citizens in their homes. The Home-Delivered Meals program is more than just a needed meal, it is the gateway to bundled services that ensure quality of life in the least restrictive environment. Last year you assisted John Shaw and his family. Today you’re helping hundreds and hundreds of John’s peers with your support of our Home-Delivered Meals Wine Auction Fundraiser.
We want to toast you for your support for our 16th anniversary and urge your continued caring, sensitivity, and altruism that protects more than 8,500 of our community’s seniors who are patrons of the SCV Senior Center.
Please join us on October 6, 2007 at Le Chene French Cuisine beginning at 11 a.m. Tickets are $60 and tables of eight are available for $480. Enjoy a gourmet brunch, take home world famous wines and savor the altruism for supporting the Santa Clarita Valley’s most at-risk population.
For moe information, please call the Senior Center at 661-259-9444 or visit our website at www.scvseniorcenter.org .