Palisades Alliance for Seniors Monday-morning programs at the library are CANCELLED until further notice, due to coronavirus concerns and in compliance with government mandates. Please keep checking our website for updates.
This has been such a scary and unsettling period, for everyone. It’s good that we’re staying home to stay safe from the virus. But that also means enforced solitude: We’re isolated from family, from friends, from community. We worry about ourselves and our loved ones. We are saddened by images of people lining up at food banks.
Many of us looked forward to seeing each other on Monday mornings, as a social outlet and a community connection. Now that’s gone, and it’s still unclear when we’ll be able to start up again. We'd like to maintain the connection, however imperfectly, through this website and through emails to our mailing list. (If you're not on our email list but would like to join it, please send us an email at palisadesalliance@gmail.com, and we'll add you.)
So, in the meantime, below you will find: (1) Resources to help you get through this, and (2) A request that you connect and provide your own thoughts and resources, which we can share with the group in our next update.
RESOURCES
First off, listed below are a few free resources that some of our board members have found useful, divided into five categories: Safety, Food and Errands, Ways You Can Help, Activity and Entertainment, and Improving Tech Skills. (Information is good as of April 30, 2020, but may have changed since that time.)
Safety
- As you know, the state, county, and city have issued Safer At Home emergency orders instructing all Californians to stay at home as much as possible in order to avoid spread of the coronavirus. There is a particular need to protect older adults, who are deemed at higher risk from the virus. Social distancing is an important element of COVID-19 mitigation, as is frequent hand-washing.
- Additionally, the City of LA urges that when leaving your home you wear a face covering, for your own safety and the safety of others. You may already have a mask at home – there was one in the backpack that was distributed at our 2017 Emergency Preparedness workshop. You can also just tie a scarf around your face. There are plenty of instructions online detailing how to make a fabric mask; here is a no-sew method. Neighbors are also sewing free or low-cost masks; look on Next Door or contact us for info.
Food and Errands
- The Nextdoor website has a Help map identifying individual residents, usually younger, who have volunteered to help with grocery shopping and errands for people who are at greater risk. Please know that we haven't vetted these people; we can't vouch for them. But they are part of our community and, in these extraordinary times, they have offered to help you. The Nextdoor platform can be a valuable resource (although to get to the wheat you sometimes have to sift through the chaff of partisan bickering). You can post a question or follow responses to others’ questions.
- If you must go out, the local markets have instituted early morning senior shopping hours: Gelson’s 7 to 8 am. Ralphs 6 to 7:30 am. Whole Foods 7 to 8 am. Vons 6 to 7 am, M-F. Trader Joe’s 8 to 9 am. Note that even though these hours are exclusively for seniors or immune-compromised, the stores still limit entry, so that you may need to wait in line to get in.
- Grocery delivery via Instacart or Amazon Fresh. This can be useful but it is also frustrating to set up online. The delivery services are overloaded and thus reserving a delivery time is not easy.
- Meal delivery via Meals on Wheels: (310) 394-5133, extension 1.
Ways You Can Help
- Call or email a friend, to check in and catch up.
- Donate to a nonprofit organization helping those in need:
California Community Foundation COVID-19 LA County Response Fund
Covenant House California - serving homeless youth
Los Angeles House of Ruth - haven for families affected by domestic violence
Meals on Wheels West Los Angeles
United Way Pandemic Relief Fund
Activity and Entertainment (all free of charge)
- "Quarantunes": From his porch in Manhattan Beach, Dennis McNeil daily sings standards like Danny Boy or You Raise Me Up. Find it live on Facebook at 5:30 pm, or archived on YouTube.
- Road Scholar Virtual Lectures on topics such as “Winston Churchill: The Darkest Hour” and “The History of Native American Cuisine”.
- Seated Chair Exercises from Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
- National Theatre Live streams a new full length production on YouTube every Thursday, available to watch for free for a week.
- Standing Exercises for Older Adults from Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
- Ryan Heffington dance party "Sweatfest" on Instagram Live. At the end he has the 5,000 people participating from home all repeat, “We’ll get through this.”
- Broad Stage At Home offers wonderful live-streamed musical and poetry performances, such as David Broza Israeli/Spanish guitar fusion.
- The physical library is closed but you can still go online and borrow all sorts of e-books and audiobooks to read on Kindle, computer, or phone. To find the library's online tutorial on how to get set up with the Libby app: (1) Start at the E-Media and Digital Content page . (2) Scroll down and click on "Need help? Get started with a quick lesson." (3) Scroll through the choices and click on "Overdrive | Libby". (4) Click on "Lessons" (upper right corner) to find device-specific instructions that you can click on.
Improving Tech Skills - Why is this important? Because if you can push through the sometimes intimidating instructions for using video chat programs, you will have access to more social connections.
- Zoom is a video conferencing application that lets you participate in meetings, classes, and get-togethers. The problem is figuring out how to get started -- no one wants to feel like a dummy. Often online classes seem way too complicated, but this online tutorial, apparently written to help people trying to go online for bible study class, is accessible and calm. (You can skip past the ads after the first few seconds.)
- FaceTime (Apple devices only): Instructions here.
- Google Duo (Android devices only). Instructions here.
CONNECTION
We'd love to hear from you! If you feel like it, please email us and let us know how you are doing.
How are you coping with the difficult parts of this new life? Have you found any silver linings? Do you have suggestions for others, or an idea you'd like to share with your neighbors? (Unless you explicitly give us permission, we won’t use your name if we share these ideas in a later email, so please let us know if it’s OK.)
If you are lonely and just want a phone-friend to chat with — or if you can take responsibility for staying in touch with someone else who may feel isolated — please let us know, and we will try to connect you.
Also, if you have a question or concern, feel free to write. We might not have the answer but we’ll see what we can do.
We miss you. Stay well and stay safe! It is a challenging time, but as Ryan Heffington says, "We'll get through this."