When she needed to create a project in a Landmark Education program, Ruth Pillet created an activity that's unlikely to have been seen anywhere else – a team of seated, senior tap dancers, who perform numbers from such Broadway classics as "A Chorus Line" at a senior center in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia.

According Main Line Media News, Pillet, 71 years old herself, wanted to bring the joy of dance to seniors. A dance performer in her youth who returned to it 11 years ago, Pillet choreagraphed simple routines and put together various costumes, such as tophats and canes, or black and white outfits for the Chorus Line numbers, for the 13 performing seniors, the oldest of which is 91.

She arranged for tap shoes to be donated from the McHenry Dance Center after getting the go-ahead from the PALM center (Positive Aging in Lower Merion) to introduce the program. The senior group has had multiple public performances, incuding at PALM's annual luncheon and The Martin Luther King Association's program at Bryn Mawr College.

Those interested in getting involved or finding out more information can contact Pillet at 610-642-9370.

Landmark Education News has received word that "Tying up Loose Ends", the play focusing on end of life issues written and performed by Ann and Catherine Gallogly, will be appearing at the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts on December 11-13 and again on December 18-20. The impetus to write and produce the play was apparently from a Landmark Education program.

The play tells about a dozen different stories of people near the end of their lives, informed by Catherine's thirty year history as a caregiver. It includes a variety of monologues and songs from different genres. Despite the subject matter, observers have described the show as upbeat and lively, capturing both the pathos and the surprising humor of life and death. The 70-minute play is directed by Jamie O'Reilly, with the music by Ann Gallogly and Dan Stetzel.

Showtimes are at 8pm for all shows, with additional 3pm matinees for Saturday and Sunday shows. Tickets cost $25 in advance or $30 at the door. To get tickets go to www.theaterland.com, call 312-733-6000, or email boxoffice@theaterland.com. To find out more about the play and read an interview with Ann on how it was created, read an article from the Wednesday Journal of Oak Park and River Forest.

On July 16th, Houston area newspaper The Leader ran a story about Robin Craig’s project to help her fellow widows. The project, which she came up with in Landmark Education’s self expression and leadership program, recognizes and acknowledges widows and encourages others to do the same. The project, which led to Mayor Bill White declaring a "Help a Widow Day", was also feature on Fox Morning News television in Houston. Here are the details.

N’west Houston woman helps her fellow widows

Asks residents to take part in July 22 "Help a Widow Day’

Northwest Houston resident Robin Craig became widowed August 22, 2005. Shortly thereafter, she experienced an intense feeling that somehow she was supposed to help her fellow widows.

Stacy Cabales created the art and music festival "Barongs of our Fathers" to honor and acknowledge Filipino fathers, to be held June 28th at the Foley Cultural Center in Vallejo, California. Created as her project in the Self-Expression and Leadership Program offered by Landmark Education, Cabales decided to have the event be fundraiser for The Bayanihan Clinic, a Sacramento clinic that provides culturally and linguistically sensitive primary care to the underserved Filipino population, particularly World War II Veterans and recent immigrants.

The Vallejo-based Times-Herald newspaper wrote an article about the upcoming event.

Bound by Barongs

by Lanz Christian Banes

When Stacy Cabales’ grandfather died in December 1999, she felt guilty for never truly appreciating the 81-year-old World War II veteran.

"I didn’t acknowledge him for the person that he was," said Cabales, 23, a Jesse Bethel High School graduate.

A decade later, that desire to honor her late grandfather has evolved into Barongs of Our Fathers, an art and music festival that Cabales has cobbled together in a few short weeks. The festival is designed to honor Filipino fathers and veterans.

A barong is a traditional male formal garment in the Philippines. Cabales, a Cal State East Bay kinesiology student, is part of a leadership seminar, and Barongs of Our Fathers is her project for the class.

"Those first couple of weeks, I got totally overwhelmed," said Cabales, who began working in earnest on the festival in April.

During her stint at Bethel, Cabales described herself as focused mainly on athletics, but otherwise uninvolved and uninterested in her community.

Now, she has enlisted the aid of that same community, bringing together a crew of local artists who will create pieces that will be displayed alongside statements about their fathers.

Among those are members of the Individual Collective, an eclectic group of young artists who have a gallery at 419 Georgia St.

"It’s really just a little spot where you can come in and kick it and stay out of trouble," said Nico Rafael, 23.

Rafael, also a Bethel alumnus, now lives in Fairfield.

Participating artists also include Christian Voltar Alcala, the son of legendary Filipino comic book artist Alfredo Alcala and a Vallejo resident.

The festival also will feature local performing talent, such as Jayne Rio and 4 Corners.

All the proceeds from the festival will benefit the Bayanihan Clinic, a Sacramento clinic that caters to Filipino World War II veterans — like Cabales’ grandfather. She was introduced to the clinic by friend and fellow Bethel alumna Maria Olandria, who works there.

Cabales hopes to raise at least $5,000 for the Bayanihan Clinic.

Events like Barongs for Our Fathers and the regular open nights at the Individual Collective Gallery promotes participation, which in turn nurtures leadership within the community, Rafael said.

Cabales stresses that, while organizing the festival, the event does not belong to her, but to the whole community.

"For the first time in my life, I’m being so … selfless," Cabales said.

 For more information about the event, visit http://www.firstgivings.com/barongsofourfathers

John Hale’s "Sudoku for Seniors" project has flourished in New England, with the brain exercising puzzle game has come to a variety of new senior centers. Hale created the project in Landmark’s Self-Expression and Leadership Program, and Vermont’s Rutland Herald newspaper featured him in a story recently.

Seniors, students unite for sudoku challenge

by Josh O’Gorman

CASTLETON — Social isolation and mental atrophy are potential dangers of growing old, but a recently formed group is combating those trends with an activity that’s both intellectual and multigenerational.

More than 40 people gathered Saturday at the Lake House Pub and Grille to raise money for Sudoku for Seniors, a loose-knit collection of volunteers formed by Castleton resident John Hale, who has joined his passion for the puzzle game with a desire to encourage public service.

The first sudoku puzzle was created by Howard Garns and published in 1979, but it did not gain popularity until the Times of London began publishing the puzzle daily in 2004. The name comes from the Japanese and means "the numbers must occur only once," an apt description of the 81-square grid that contains numbers between one and nine. While the puzzle appears mathematical, the many people at the Lake House said math has little to do with it.

"I don’t want to say the numbers aren’t important, but it’s the logic behind the numbers that are important," said Lew Tezak, of Castleton. Three years ago Tezak received a kidney transplant, and while he was in surgery, his friend Hale waited and to pass the time he picked up a sudoku book.

Hale enjoyed the puzzles, and while taking a personal development class with Landmark Education to work through his own personal challenges — he identified himself as a procrastinator — he was inspired to use the puzzle to reach out to senior citizens. Hale, who is 64, has been retired for six years but in his own words "wanted to do something more."

He began teaching sudoku at the Homestead Senior Center in Castleton and reached out to students at Castleton State College and Green Mountain College in Poultney and College for volunteers. One of the students who responded was Elliott Shor, 23, a student at Green Mountain College studying environmental management and business.

Shor said he saw an advertisement posted on campus looking for volunteers and Feb. 3 he taught his first class at the Homestead Senior Center.

He now teaches weekly and every week brings one or two friends with him, and he believes the benefits for the seniors are twofold.

"They get about an hour-and-a-half to two hours of mental stimulation and they have a young energetic person to do an activity with," Shor said.

The cognitive exercise was a point echoed by several of the people attending Saturday’s fund-raiser.

"It’s a good game to keep your brain limber after a certain age," said Tricia Lawrence, 50, of Rutland, who said the sudoku puzzle in the Rutland Herald has been part of her morning routine for the last two years.

Hale said the fundraiser was to defray the cost of sudoku materials- pencil, paper, easels- as well as 50 copies of a sudoku book edited by Will Shortz, New York Times crossword editor and editor of more than 400 crossword puzzle and sudoku books. Hale purchased the books at a discount through Annie’s Book Stop in Rutland and had a volunteer bring them to Shortz’s home in Yonkers, N.Y. to be autographed.

Shortz demonstrated his support for Sudoku for Seniors with his autographs and a prerecorded video message to start the morning. The message drew a few gasps from those who recognized his voice as puzzlemaster on National Public Radio’s "Weekend Edition Sunday."

"Thank you for supporting Sudoku for Seniors and happy hunting," Shortz said to the crowd, who then split into beginner, intermediate and advanced "black belt" groups. Puzzles themselves range from pleasantly simple to infuriatingly challenging.

While Shor taught the beginner group and Hale and Lawrence led the intermediates, Julanne Sharrow, of Shrewsbury, led the black belt group.

"One thing different about sudoku than the crossword is the numbers don’t lie," said Sharrow, a former town lister. "No matter what, you have to make the numbers come out right. It makes your brain work."

Sudoku for Seniors has expanded to involve Young at Heart Senior Center in Poultney, the Meadows, the Gables and Mountain View Center Genesis Healthcare in Rutland and Rutland Healthcare & Rehabilitation. While Hale is thrilled watching the growth and positive effects of what he’s started, to hear him talk to his intermediate competitors Saturday he sounds like a man at peace.

"It’s like I tell people doing a puzzle and in life: be Zen, go with the flow and be happy with the journey," he said.

Out of taking Landmark Education’s Self-Expression and Leadership program, New Jersey native Jackie Hardrick has designed a new program, ‘Adopt-A-Senior,’ in which volunteers spend time with seniors in nursing homes or rehabilitation centers. The program began with a holiday party where seniors got to meet the volunteers on December 20, 2007 at the South Mountain Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center in Vauxhall.

Hardrick was inspired to create the project by her own experience with her Aunt who lived in Virginia. She would visit her Aunt periodically at the senior center where she lived, and she got sad as she passed by rooms where lonely people lived who had nobody to visit them. Her aunt has since passed away, but in the program Jackie decided she “wanted to do something my aunt’s honor.”

She enrolled 11 volunteers, many of them from her church, the Agape Family Worship Center in Rahway. Volunteers are interviewed carefully before being assigned to a senior: They are matched with a same sex senior with similar interests, and a background check is conducted on the volunteer. All the volunteers are professionals with busy lives of their own, but they all agreed to see their senior at least three or four times a month. Hardrick, a firm believer in practicing what she preaches, is one of the volunteers.

Many of the volunteers are finding that they get as much out of it as the seniors do.  Volunteer Clinton Miller is excited to learn from his senior, 91-year old Lewis Mosley.

“He served in two world wars,” says Miller of Mosley. “I am fascinated by the knowledge I’m going to glean from him. It’s a blessing.”

Janice Grant of Linden hit it off immediately with her adoptee, 66-year old Nora Spong. “We’ve been talking about everything,” Grant related. “She likes Bingo and we both love Westerns.”

Hardrick finds the most difficult part of the program is leaving the senior at the end of a visit. She always feels a desire to do and give more, which is one reason she is committed to expanding the program and making it national. Currently hers is the only program of its kind in New Jersey. The next step towards making this happen is to find a National Director, regional, state or county coodinators, and other positions such as nursing home liasons. Anyone who wants to get involved should contact her at jackiehardrick@hotmail.com. To read more about Hardrick and Adopt-A-Senior, check out a recent story about her in the Union-Leader.

On most bridal registries you will find things like coffee makers, china, linens and other household goods. 

If you were on the guest list of Linda and Richard Frary’s wedding last spring, you would have found goats, pigs and trees; all items that they were asking be purchased through Heifer International in order to benefit children and families in rural villages around the world. 

Richard and Linda were both participating at Landmark Education when they met.  They say that as they began to plan their wedding they wanted to make sure that it made a difference in the world.  Instead of having people give customary gifts they requested that people make donations to Heifer International. 

Heifer International is a global non-profit that provides farm animals and trees to families in developing countries so that they can create economic self-reliance.  Each donation pays for at least one animal that goes to a family in need and to date the Frary wedding has resulted in 55 donations.

Both retired from previous careers, Linda and Richard are dedicated to helping others fulfill their dreams.   Said Richard, “You get nothing if you don’t give something away.”

You can read more about Richard and Linda’s wedding in this story from the Sarasota Herald Tribune.

Couple proves it’s never too late to find true love

BY AIMEE CHOUINARD CORRESPONDENT

The Frarys are new homeowners in Beneva Pines. Married just a few weeks ago, Richard, 66, and Linda, 59, are a testament that finding love late in life is possible. In two weeks, they will embark on a three-week honeymoon toBora Bora.  The Frarys dated for two years before they married. One year into the relationship, Richard Frary asked Linda to marry him.”I asked her, and she said, ‘No,’” Richard said with a laugh.  “I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to get married again,” Linda explained.  “And that was OK,” Richard said. “A couple months later, we were at the beach, looking out at the ocean, and I asked her again.”

They were married on Turtle Beach on Siesta Key, surrounded by family and friends, including Linda’s newly found birth family, whom Linda, who was adopted, never knew.Instead of registering for gifts at a department store, the Frarys registered with an organization called Heifer International, a nonprofit organization whose goal is to help end world hunger and poverty through self-reliance and sustainability. More than 60 guests visited the Web site beforehand to donate goats, pigs and trees to help children and families around the world become self-reliant. Richard Frary has been retired for 10 years from his Miami wholesale air-conditioning and heating products company. Linda Frary owned a picture-framing store in Connecticut and opened the same business here in Sarasota. She recently closed Sarasota Framing and Design to retire.” We’re getting younger, so we need more time to play,” Richard Frary joked. The Frarys both have children from previous marriages, Linda has a daughter and Richard has a son and a daughter.Richard Frary recently moved from Miami to Englewood, leaving his Englewood beach home to live with Linda in Sarasota.

Some of their best memories are of hours they spent engrossed in long conversations about their lives, their families and their dreams at the beach house.” It was during those intimate conversations that I realized Richard was such a special guy,” Linda said.

 Intimate conversations have been a part of the Frarys’ relationship since they both participated in personal development work with a company called Landmark Education.” Landmark has had a lot to do with the incredible relationship we have created. When I did the Landmark Forum, I got over my past. Linda was a huge support during that time. That’s when I fell in love with her,” Richard said. The Frays are committed to making a difference in their community and the world. “We have great friends,” Linda said. “We meet people everywhere we go and just start talking.

“We love to meet people when we travel and are looking for ways we can contribute in other countries. We strive to be an example of a loving relationship in the world.”

The Frarys say they love Sarasota because of the arts, the entertainment and the creative spiritual community with so many organizations to be a part of. They plan to keep Sarasota as their home while traveling the world. Linda volunteers with Girls Inc., assisting with classes and programs. She says she loves being with the kids. She plans to also continue her already established involvement with the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce.” We have an easygoing life,” Linda said. “We’re always running somewhere and always have something to do.”

In addition to traveling, the Frarys garden together and especially enjoy growing orchids. They kayak, snorkel and go boating together. Richard’s passion is windsurfing.“People ask, “How can I have what you and Linda have?” says Richard. 

In unison, the Frarys say, “We just choose it!”

 As the United States popluation ages, an ever increasing number of seniors spend their days alone without visitors or companionship.  For many of these seniors, lonliness is compounded  by health issue and limited mobility.  Jeannine Miller created a project called “A Little Bird Told Me” to help do something about it.   Here is the story from the North County Times in San Diego County:

Volunteering to help lonely seniors

By: TOM MORROW – Staff Writer

“He never talks about the war or his experiences,” Miller said.After making an effort to go to various senior centers, assisted living facilities and retirement homes, Miller quickly learned most of her father’s generation are equally mum about their earlier lives, especially the Depression and war.She began taking a class in San Diego on “self expression and leadership,” hoping to gain more insight on ways to better communicate with older seniors like her father.”The lack of communications (between her and her father) prompted me to think of other seniors who are in retirement homes and who possibly don’t have family or at least no one close by to visit them, unlike my dad, who has three doting daughters and a caregiver and lives in his own home.

“Miller came up with her idea of “A Little Bird Told Me,” which is a simple method of getting people to volunteer by going to retirement homes and assisted living facilities to help in any way needed. Miller designed a brochure, which she hands out to friends and neighbors who might want to help. The brochure lists five area senior facilities, mostly in Carlsbad. “I ask people to choose a facility, then call and ask for a quick interview to be matched with an activity they enjoy or be paired up with a senior who might have a common interest,” she explained. “It can be anything from conversation, to playing cards, or bingo, or even planting flowers.”  So far, Miller has coaxed 18 of her friends and neighbors into the program.“It’s amazing the response I get when I visit some of the folks, especially ones who never have any visitors,” she said. “The look and smile on their faces when I shake their hand and tell them how nice it is to meet them.”Miller says her program is very simple, but one that is needed. “All I ask is that people like myself volunteer to visit a facility, make a friend or two, then engage in an activity with a senior they have befriended,” Miller explained. “It can be just about anything, even assist in an art class. It’s amazing the reaction volunteers will get when the older person realizes he or she has something in common to talk about or engage in with the volunteer.”Miller has no idea how far her program might go.“It’s just a matter of spreading the word and getting more people like myself interested in volunteerism, who will help senior citizens,” she concluded. “Just like the popular ‘Love on a Leash’ program of taking pets to retirement facilities, I want to expand on having people visit, who do a variety of activities that will be of interest to older folks seldom having visitors.”

She’s looking for more volunteers to join her. Miller can be reached at (760) 578-9964, or e-mail her at: terramar_4@yahoo.com.