Navidad Valley Community Center Implements New Safe Environment
Navidad Valley Community Connections Center in Wolters Park will be closed from Monday, Aug, 2 through Monday, Aug. 9, for safety reasons as the City of Schulenburg crews work on festival preparations. The Navidad Valley Community Connections center has a new office number. The new office number is (979) 743-3227.
NVCC has created a safer environment for staff members and volunteers, when they are working in the building alone or after hours by providing a more refined and reliable method of communication, especially in an emergency. The center now has a phone with an answering machine, caller ID, and speed dial. Staff can now see who has called, when they called, and listen to a message from them and will be able to capture new contacts and phone numbers. NVCC has also instituted a new policy that requires staff to check the phone immediately upon entering the building and to return all calls within 24 hours.
NVCC recently met with City of Schulenburg Fire Marshall, Steve Strickland, who assisted NVCC to determine a safe occupancy number for a building of its size and configuration, being mindful of the number of walkers and wheelchairs that are in the house too.
The new director is working hard to increase visibility and get the word out about the good work that goes on at the center.
Stay tuned for more exciting news and keep watching NVCC grow into the kind of community-based, non-profit organization, dedicated to providing services to the senior citizen population in Fayette County and the surrounding areas that our elders deserve, and are proud to call their senior center.
NVCC was thrilled to have Lucy Stanzel and Jannette Streit, a trained docent from the Stanzel Museum, join at the last Lunch and Learn series. They told members all about Joe and Victor Stanzel and how they were so inspired to question everything and to learn. Did you know that a book was written about Joe and Victor and the Stanzel legacy? Lucy brought two of those books into the center and showed them to our members, who passed them around and looked at all the photos, past and present in the book. Then she surprised members and said if everyone wrote their names down on slips of paper, she would raffle one of the books off. A small raffle was conducted and Janette pulled Judy Klesel’s name and she was the winner of one of the books. An act of kindness soon followed. Irene Janda was intrigued with the photos and when Judy Klesel saw this, she told Irene to take the book home and look at it slowly then bring it back to her when she was done with it. Lucy was touched by this small act and mentioned it later. Good things do happen at the NVCC Center, and when you are there to be a witness to them you won’t be the same ever again. We are so thankful and blessed at our Center.
When you can make a 95 year young person smile and blush with happy birthday wishes and blessings from friends and neighbors, you must be doing something right. Mrs. Evelyn Kusy did just that. She was treated to a red rose corsage, created by our Crafty Corner group, a nice red velvet birthday cake to share with all, two of her daughters were in the house with us, and we all sang happy birthday to her. You could just tell that she was tickled by all the attention and grateful to be in good company.
We had good informative community speakers, and we also welcomed Shannon McBride from Kindred at Home, to call bingo for us. We celebrated birthdays of the month, we played some hard-nosed bingo on Wednesday and we have been painting away on our prayer poles. We are working on producing some fidget lap blankets to take to nursing homes and assisted living facilities, because we know they could use them. It keeps us productive, and we want to do as much as we can while we still can for others.
The Let’s Talk Gardening-program is scheduled for the last Tuesday of the month. The garden group is talking about an exchange program where we can swap plant cuttings and perhaps recipes too. We are making plans to go to Cindy Meredith’s Herb Cottage to see some of the techniques in action that we have been discussing.
The Bunco Squad will be re-scheduled for the second Thursday of August. The group will meet on Thursday, Aug. 12, and will get started at 9 a.m. Be mindful of this change, due to the Schulenburg Festival. There will still be a light lunch provided at noon along with conversation, dominos, 42, Moon, and fun.
Navidad Valley Community Connections is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization with a mission “to provide a multipurpose organization that initiates, sponsors, and promotes events, activities, and projects which enhance the quality of life for older adults in Fayette County and the surrounding communities. NVCC is located next door to the Boys & Girls Club in Wolters Park.