[Oceanwavequilters] Volunteers needed for the Senior Center - can Ocean Wave Quilters help?

[Sharon Lau]

I met with Jill Rexrode, Director of the Senior Center, a couple of days ago to give her a letter asking when she thought we could resume our Sunday meetings at the Senior Center. The Center is still not open to the public, and it will probably be a couple of months before we are able to meet, but she seemed open to letting us resume our meetings with some safeguards in place. More on that later.



Their main focus currently is on getting the lunch service in the dining room restarted and on fully staffing The Attic. In order to do that, they are in desperate need of volunteers, and Jill wondered if the Ocean Wave Quilters could be of help.



Sherry and I attended a meeting this morning to find out more about the volunteer opportunities.



First, let me say that they are still trying to figure things out - life is a whole lot more complicated with COVID. Procedures will be different than pre-COVID, and they are going to need volunteers who are patient and flexible.



Volunteers are required to be completed vaccinated for COVID (you must show your COVID card) OR to provide proof of a negative COVID test within the past 72 hours.


The center is asking for volunteers to do one shift a week (or more if you can).


The volunteer opportunities that are available are:



(1) The Attic could use volunteers on Monday and Tuesday between the hours of 11 and 2. Jody (the manager) says the duties would include:

      (a) doing laundry and ironing of donated clothing (they have in-house facilities for this)

      (b) dusting

      (c) waiting on customers

      (d) cashiering



(2) Servers in the dining room - the hours meals are served is being expanded to 11:30-1:30, so the shift for this would also be 11 to 2. Because of policies set up by the Area Agency on Aging, which oversees the food preparation and serving, servers will NOT be allowed in the kitchen. The responsibilities would be to serve salads, hot meals, desserts, and beverages, which would be put on carts by kitchen staff. You would deliver the cart contents it to a specific set of assigned tables. They also need one volunteer to be responsible for the coffee bar (because they only want one person touching the equipment to keep it sanitized). They also need volunteers to bus the tables. You would be required to wear an apron, mask, gloves, and to have your hair up (if you have short hair, you are OK).



(3) Volunteers to sit at the front door to register anyone entering the building, to make sure they are masked (as long as this is required) and to record in a computer the COVID card or test results. This is a requirement of the overseeing agencies, and is also the best way to make sure the Senior Center and its vulnerable population is kept as COVID-free as possible.





I plan to sign up for one day a week to do the front door duties - and I think that assignment will be time-limited to maybe 2 or 3 months until COVID restrictions are eliminated in the state due to vaccinations and herd immunity. Would anyone else like to sign up for that, as well? Jill would be EXTREMELY grateful and relieved if we could take on that responsibility (or any of the others). (This could help us get back to our meetings there sooner!!!)





I have attached copies of the two forms you would need to complete and return to the Senior Center. Note that you will also need to watch a 20-minute on-line video about Privacy and Safety (again, a requirement of the overseeing agency), which is essentially an interactive quiz. Once you answer the questions correctly, you would download a certificate, fill it out and present it to the Senior Center with your application.  Here is the link to this presentation:  https://www.aging.ca.gov/Information_Security/Privacy_and_Information_Security_Awareness_Training/





If you do plan to sign up to volunteer, please let me know so I can keep track of OWQ's efforts on this project. Thank you!





Sharon Lau
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.mcn.org/pipermail/oceanwavequilters/attachments/20210604/b4f61258/attachment-0001.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Redwood Coast Senior Center Volunteer Forms.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 231864 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.mcn.org/pipermail/oceanwavequilters/attachments/20210604/b4f61258/attachment-0001.pdf