Update on Senior Outreach Program

We started an outreach program for the elder members of our community back in November.  The Visiting Nurse Association of Little Compton runs an adult daycare center for clients stuggling with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia and were very welcoming to our proposal for art classes.  We have an added dimension of the work:  loving company of Sophie, the pet therapy dog.  Sophie is a large black standard poodle (unfashionable haircut) with limpid brown eyes and affection for everyone, a great asset to our painting efforts.  We have decided to call this program Sophie’s Corner.

We have added two new members to our ranks Lois Marshall and Jennifer Teichman. Other team members, Carolyn Winter, Pamela Sobel, and Helen Nadler. We have a schedule of simple art projects for about two months in advance. We are getting to know these great people with whom we work and the wonderful staff who care for them. The time commitment is so flexible; requires a hour just every so often.

Please join us if you want to have some fun and MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
We all have much to learn from these patient people. 
CALL  Helen Nadler, 401-624-9974

November 12, 2009
Our program, SOPHIE’S CORNER, is about a year old now and we are changing and growing.  Lois and Janet have left us, as their commitments are changed, and we have been joined by Dianna Parente,  Helen Woodhouse, Sandy Woodhouse, and Carolyn Winter – all committed to the arts.  We have worked hard to create projects that stimulate and yet are respectful of the wisdom and abilities of our group.  We have found that the most important goal is to provide a way of  interacting and bringing activity, sensuous experience to our friends whose lives have become restrictive.  As we have spent time here, I think, we have grown, learned, and most of all have discovered a good way of having fun with our clients and with each other.  We have new paints that are good quality and fairly easy to use, which makes learning color mixtures, etc. fun and full of discovery.  Debby Ort, the Recreation Director, has taught us to go slower and be more specific in our instruction; we still are able to delight in the use of “accidents” to discover new possibilities,  (the secret of all art, right?)

The other secret of the artful life is flexibility of thought, ability to adjust to what is; this has been a test for me as I have assumed that Sophie, the Therapy Dog, would completely participate.  She has become the recalcitrant dog; she is 12  years old and has made clear that she will still love everyone, but NOT IN THAT CROWDED ROOM.  She will hang out with Janine in the office, but that is her limit.  Sorry everyone!  But her spirit lives!

I have always believed art is another way of knowing and I think we in Sophie’s corner are learning that – yet again.  If you would like to join us, call me, 401-624-9974. 

Thank you,
Helen Nadler