senior spotlightsto r i e s a n d n e w s f r o m s e n i o r s e rv i c e s | fa l l-w i n t e r 2015-16
2015 BOARD MEMBERS SEN IOR SERVICES
CHAI RSandra Adams
SECRETARYDeborah C. Isbister
TREASU RERDavid R. Smelcer
IMMEDIATE PAST CHAI RJames T. Brewer
F. Scott BauerMarilyn Broyhill Beach
Bill BentonCandice Wooten Brown
Richard P. BuddJohn W. Davis IIIRichard N. Davis
Robert A. Emken, Jr.Linda Garrou
Robert E. GreeneSue Henderson
Betsy Hoppe, Ph.D.Richard Janeway, M.D.Robert J. Johnson, Jr.
Jeffery T. LindsaySusan Mann
C. Douglas Maynard, M.D.John D. McConnell, M.D.
B. Hofler MilamThomas O. Moore III
Ellen C. ParsleyTommy J. Payne
Jimmy StricklandEdwin L. Welch III
Jason D. Zaks
LI FE DI RECTORSJohn W. BurressVictor I. Flow, Jr.
Richard StocktonA. Tab Williams, Jr.
SEN IOR SERVICES FOU N DATION
CHAI RElizabeth L. Quick
CHAI R-ELECTVeronica C. Black
SECRETARYJim Hardison
TREASU RERAlbert L. Butler
IMMEDIATE PAST CHAI RVictor I. Flow, Jr.
Nigel D. AlstonJohn B. Brady
James T. BrewerBruce T. Brown
William M. BrynerChris ChapmanDavid L. Cotterill
RaVonda Dalton-RannRichard N. Davis
Marian M. DouglasDale E. Driscoll
Lynn B. EisenbergCharles H. HauserMichael R. HoughJeffrey C. Howland
Adele L. JamesKayce King
Geoff LassiterSuzanne Taylor Ramm
Eric J. Sadler, D.D.S.John L. Schultz, Jr.
David G. TownsendRamon Velez, M.D.
Philip R. S. Waugh, Jr.
PRESI DENT & CEORichard Gottlieb
NonprofitOrganizationU.S. Postage
PAIDWinston-Salem, NC
Permit No. 709Address Service Requested
Giving MattersYour gifts to the Annual Fund of Senior Services enable us to reach out to the homebound elderly in need with the staff, volunteers and services essential to their being able to remain at home, living with dignity. In addition, it is always a great time for you to consider:
The Power of Music“One of our participants was really upset and wouldn’t communicate at all,” said Kathy Long, vice president of Senior Services’ Adult Day Services, describing an incident at the Williams Adult Day Center for those struggling with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of memory impairment.
“We placed an iPod on her,” she continued, “played her music, and within minutes she stopped
crying, started talking and even sang to us.”
2895 Shorefair Drive, Winston-Salem, NC 27105
These special types of gifts allow you to give larger amounts than you might be able to give otherwise, while benefiting the older adults we assist for years to come. They also can help reduce federal and state taxes for you and/or your heirs.
We hope you will consider finding a special way to include Senior Services in your giving plans now or when you are gift planning in the future. For more information, or to arrange a meeting to discuss your options, please call Patty Mead at 336-721-6908. ♥
Contributing to one of our many endowed
funds that support Meals-on-Wheels, the
Williams Adult Day Center or one of our
other programs.
Making a gift of appreciated stock, real estate, a contribution from your retirement account, or a gift of
other assets;
Naming Senior Services as a
beneficiary in your will or
retirement plan;
OU R MISSION
Helping seniors
in Forsyth County
remain in their
own homes for as
long as possible,
living with dignity.
OU R PROGRAMS
Elizabeth and Tab Williams
Adult Day Center
Meals-on-Wheels
Help Line
Home Care
Living-at-Home
Senior Lunch
Elder Care Choices
CONTACT US
Senior Services
2895 Shorefair Drive
Winston-Salem, NC 27105
seniorservicesinc.org
336-725-0907
Such are the amazing results that the staff at the Williams Center has witnessed since the center became an official Music & Memory site in June. “The Music & Memory approach has a calming effect on individuals, and we have already experienced great results,” Long affirmed. “We work with family members to determine the style and era of music that might be most effective at helping the patient regain positive memories.”
Playlists are then created using the music chosen by family members as likely to be the most meaningful to their loved ones. Once loaded onto iPods, headphones are readied, the play button is pushed and remarkable things happen. “What we’re seeing is just wonderful,” Long proclaimed. ♥
Newlyweds Sylvia and Richard Budd moved into Cloverdale Apartments in 1963, and he found work earning $1.25 an hour as a janitor. In the years that followed, he bought and grew that janitorial company into a regional janitorial, landscape and maintenance company with more than 3,000 employees
He and Sylvia and some of their family now live on a farm on the Davie County side of the Yadkin River. They’ve raised three sons, traveled the world and more or less settled down. Richard has turned business matters over to son Joe, but stands by if needed.
Meanwhile, he’s a little freer to pursue his second calling: civic duty. Senior Services is one of the beneficiaries. As he enters his sixth year on the board, he’s agreed to be honorary co-chair of a new initiative called “Aging with Purpose” with Kelly King, the CEO of BB&T.
Richard credits the late Dr. Joe May with much of his success. Having “frittered away” two years at a college in Maryland, he got a nudge from his brother, Dave Budd, a Wake Forest basketball star who later played five years with the New York Knicks in the NBA. Dave told Richard to “go see Dr. May.” So he drove down to Winston-Salem, found the May residence and knocked on the door. “Come on in,” said the doctor.
And thus began a long friendship with a smart, generous mentor, who helped Richard get into High Point College. He graduated with a business degree and 10 years ago was chosen to head the search committee that persuaded Nido Qubein to become the president of High Point, by then, University. “We needed a businessman,” said Richard, “one who could transform the institution and begin to move it into the elite group of the private colleges in the state.”
Also high on Richard’s long list of civic activities are the Childress Institute for Pediatric Trauma, Wake Forest Baptist Health, the YMCA and the The Winston-Salem Foundation.
As a businessman and Senior Services board member, he lauds “the professionalism and efficiency of Richard Gottlieb and his staff and their ability to deliver the product to those in need.” He’s also become more aware of “the growing needs of many in our community who aren’t able to care for themselves.”
“This has become my calling,” said Richard, who grew up in Woodbury, NJ, one of eight children of a farmer/homebuilder and a schoolteacher. His storybook life illustrates what he says has been his motto: “Learn, earn and give back.” ♥
Bobby King’s grandmother, who raised him, taught him “to always help, no matter what.” And that’s what he’s trying to do now, though as a teenager he drifted away from that conviction for a while. He said that while living with other relatives in New York and elsewhere, he made some bad choices, including giving up on religion. Now he’s got his life back on track and is driving two routes for Meals-on-Wheels and would like to do more.
Life’s lessons, however hard, have helped him, he said. New York was both exciting and instructive, broadening his world in every way. Driving a taxi was an education itself, he said. “I had the opportunity to meet every kind of person you can think of, to see every phase of life and lifestyle.”
He worked at other jobs and took some psychology courses at Baruch College. Back in North Carolina, he found himself drifting again . . . then got a degree in graphic design at Forsyth Tech. He also began to read Scripture and other books to find a spiritual path. “I ran from religion,” he said, because “my concept was that living a Christian life meant you had to be almost perfect.” His reading showed him otherwise: “Perfection doesn’t exist . . . God would use me right where I was.”
In 1989 he joined Winston-Salem First (Assembly) and “accepted the Lord in my life.” And the desire to help others returned in full force. His grandmother, Rosie Reynolds, who died two years ago at age 100, had been right. He started small, helping folks with home repairs they couldn’t afford, and then he discovered Senior Services. “I value what they do, and how they serve the county’s seniors in an extremely valuable way.”
Bobby married his wife, Brenda, 15 years ago; they each had two sons (one of his died young of sickle cell disease). He’s looking forward to retirement next April from ABF Freight System, where he operates a forklift loading and unloading trucks.
His second-shift schedule leaves his mornings open for Meals-on-Wheels, on routes that take him out Clemmonsville Road and in the Easton area. Many of the people he sees have few or no family members to visit them, “so they’re excited to see me coming. In that moment, I can feel the joy and gratitude. I‘m fully aware, every day, that I am blessed.”
His philosophy of life has become: “It’s not rocket science. Love your neighbor and be kind to each other. People are just people, and we all have to have human contact.” ♥
How does a Lewisville farm girl turn out to be national Gerontological Nurse of the Year? One step at a time.
1. Finish high school with an excellent report (both academic and athletic). 2. Graduate from the NC Baptist Hospital School of Nursing (while marrying
and having two children). 3. Work second shift as a general surgery nurse for two years (at $3.27 an hour). 4. Become assistant manager in cardiothoracic surgery.5. Serve as head nurse in cardiothoracic surgery for 23 years. 6. Move into renal and kidney transplant nursing, remaining for seven years.
Then Kathy Long finds her true love. It happens at the Sticht Center, in the ACE unit (acute care for the elderly). There her career merged into the evolution of gerontology as a specialty. Geriatric nursing was quick to follow, and there Kathy
first learned that older adults deserve not only respect but special kinds of care.
For Kathy, a BS in nursing followed. In 1993 she was listed as one of the Great 100 Nurses of the Year in North Carolina and later, as a fellow in the National Gerontological Nurses Associat ion, she traveled to Rotterdam to tell a European nurses conference about what was happening in the U.S. and Winston-Salem.
As retirement approached, a friend suggested that Kathy not quit but apply to fill a vacancy at Senior Services’ Williams Adult Day Center on Cloverdale Avenue. That’s where now, as vice president, she has contact every single day with people who need geriatric care of a special kind. Most of them are in some stage of dementia and attend the center for all or part of a day while their families are at work or in need of some respite time.
“We give person-centered care,” she said, “as opposed to patient-centered care.” New approaches in music (see front-page story), healing touch, and aroma therapy “can calm down an agitated person in 30 minutes.” The center, with a staff of 27, has an enrollment of 130 and on an average day cares for about 80 people. Their families are invited to participate in support groups; and nursing and med students rotate through the center regularly.
Kathy credits a “second” career, organizing Princess House parties, for teaching her management skills such as goal-setting, motivation and delegation. “But faith gets me through,” she said, as it did for her mother when the man of the house died, leaving her with four children. Kathy, at 10, was the oldest daughter . . . and the one who still believes that “a stoplight is actually a go-light.” ♥
VP's True Love is Caring for the Elderly
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Civic Duty Has Become Board Member’s Calling
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Volunteer Learned to "Help No Matter What"
By Jo Dawson, Volunteer Writer