A culture of giving is the very foundation of Ashby Village. Every day, members of the Ashby Village community come together in large and small ways, giving their time, heart, life experience, and generous donations to help older adults in the East Bay age with vibrancy and purpose connected to a caring community.

We are stronger now than ever before, with a tremendous opportunity to reinforce and innovate the ways we support each other – thanks to you.

With our annual fundraising campaign now in full swing, please consider making a gift to Ashby Village today using one of the easy options highlighted below. Every gift makes an impact!

And if you've already given, thank you! You're among the many who have helped us surpass the half-way mark toward our goal.

With sincere gratitude,

Your friends at Ashby Village

When: Monday, December 5, 1-3pm

Where: *IN PERSON* 1 Swan Way, Oakland - Meet at the farthest parking lot on the left off the access road. If you see the large platform at the end of the road, you're in the right place.

Appropriate for all skills levels and wheelchair/walker accessible, this easy walk along the tidal Arrowhead Marsh can be done at your own pace and preferred length, with options for faster walkers and longer routes. Rain cancels, so it's important to register to receive timely updates. Read more details and register here.

When: Wednesdays, December 7, 14, 21 and 28, 10am-12pm

Where: *IN PERSON* - Julia Morgan Hall, 1821 Catalina Ave, Berkeley

Register in person. Proof of vaccination required at your first class for entry. Read more details here.

When: Wednesday, December 7, 10am-12pm

Where: *IN PERSON* - 5000 Piedmont Avenue, Oakland

Ruby Long, a member and volunteer at Ashby Village, has been a docent at the cemetery for a number of years and is leading the tour of this cemetery with its impressive repository of local and state history.

Tour is limited to 10 Ashby Village members and/or volunteers and advance registration is required. Read more details here.

—A New Look at the Universe

When: Thursday, December 8, 3-4:30pm

Where: *ON ZOOM*

Meeting ID: 848 0146 1083

Passcode: science

Retired astronomer, Larry Toy, PhD, joins us to give a brief history of the James Webb Space Telescope in its short time in space, which has given us unprecedented views of the universe. Toy will explain how and why the telescope was created and the reasons for its unique location in space, and will also share some extraordinary photos and their meaning. Read more details and register here.

Where: *IN PERSON* - Julia Morgan Hall at the Ashby Village Offices, 1821 Catalina Avenue, Berkeley

Ashby Village Members & Volunteers are invited to gather and enjoy light bites and dessert. And, the puzzle and book exchange returns! Share an old favorite or find something new! Click below to register by email by Friday, December 2!

The Bucket List (2007)

When: Friday, December 16, 4-5pm

Where: *ON ZOOM*

Meeting ID: 890 3363 0718

Passcode: film

This classic buddy adventure comedy-drama film directed and produced by Rob Reiner stars Academy Award winners Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as terminally ill men who set out on a wish list road trip.

Please view the film first on your own and then join us on Zoom to discuss our reactions and what we might want on our own bucket lists. Read more and access the Zoom link here.

When: Wednesday, December 21, 1-3pm

Where: *IN PERSON* Inspiration Point, Wildcat Canyon Road, Berkeley (see calendar event for more detail)

This out-and-back, relatively level walk follows a wide paved fire road that runs along San Pablo Ridge and offers views of the San Francisco Bay and inland valleys. Turn-around at any point. We hope to have walk leaders to accommodate various distance and speed abilities. Rain cancels, so it's important to register to receive timely updates. Read more and register here.

Check our Calendar

for more upcoming events, classes, and activities!

Members who identify as women and were born in the 1950s (or thereabouts) are invited to gather on Zoom to share reflections about what it is like to live in their seventh decade.

Ashby Village member Francie Nurkse will lead these bi-monthly gatherings and facilitate meaningful group conversations around participant responses to a query that will be posted before each meeting and/or something a member shares about what is going on in their life.

The group will meet on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month, 2:30 to 4pm starting on January 11, 2023, to support and learn from each other as we navigate life in our 70s.

Please contact Francie P. Nurkse (Cell/Text: 831-227-9531 or Email: [email protected]) for more information or to register for the first meeting!

When: Sunday, January 29, 2022, 2-4pm PT

Where: Zoom Webinar (Advance registration required)

Join us to hear what people with lifelong disabilities have to teach us so we can all move forward together! Using a wheelchair since age two, Judith was barred from attending New York City’s public schools in the 1950s until she was nine.

In 1977, Heumann led disabled activists and allies in San Francisco in the longest takeover of a government building in U.S. history. The Section 504 Sit-in sparked a national movement that led to the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Her work also helped overturn the long standing myth that we couldn’t afford to accommodate a minority of people with disabilities in the East Bay and beyond. What helped a small group of people move more safely and easily around a small city was quickly embraced by parents pushing prams, bikers, walkers, pretty much the rest of us.

This Month

“Being of service has always been important to me,” said Miklane Janner, an Ashby Village volunteer who has fulfilled over 230 direct service requests for Ashby Village members since 2017. “Both my mother and grandmother served as role models.”

Read more here about Miklane's lifetime of service and what led her to volunteer with Ashby Village!

Join the fun and volunteer at our upcoming holiday celebration!

Send an email to [email protected] with your name and a brief note about your interest and availability.

Thursday, December 15, 9:30am-12:00pm

The Hearts N' Hands program provides group volunteer opportunities to help with projects that require a little more effort than a single volunteer can fulfill. Have fun together completing small but meaningful projects! Email [email protected] for more information.

There was a time, not too long ago, when the office was bustling with activity. For the past three COVID-impacted years, the office has been rather quiet, with few people in the office on any given day. But this is slowly changing.

Volunteers have been coming back into the office in person and the office crew is growing. Shout out to Alyson, Barbara and Sasha for their weekly commitment!

There are currently several open opportunities to volunteer as part of the office crew -- some tasks and projects recur weekly in the office, and there are other opportunities to volunteer from home.

If you have time and interest in a regular three-hour commitment in the office or from home, please contact Volunteer Services Coordinator Jessica Sterling, and she'll set you up. Send an email to [email protected] or call the office at (510) 240-9200.

P.S. Check back next month for "An Ashby Village Volunteer Year in Review" as we reflect on and appreciate all you've done for Ashby Village members and our community in 2022.

Watch your email for phish — a bogus e-mail that is carefully designed to look like a legitimate request (or attached file) from a site or person you trust in an effort to get you to willingly give up your personal information such as passwords and credit card numbers.

What can you do? Be doubtful! Bad actors will try a number of ways to get your personal information. Don't give them a chance!

Email from an unknown sender? Hit the DEL key.

Email claiming to have money they're trying to give you or other

offers that sound too good to be true? They likely are! Click the trash button.

Email with an attachment that you're not expecting? Don't even think about clicking that file!

Solicitations or urgent pleas for you to take some action? Only open messages from people you absolutely trust. Clever programs can use a name from your contacts to trick you. Check that the email address is known to you, otherwise delete the message.

Phishing activity peaks during the holidays. Don't be a victim. When in doubt, delete!

Need help? Let us know and a friendly, vaccinated, knowledgeable AV Tech Team volunteer can help. Call the Ashby Village office at 510-204-9200 or email [email protected] to request assistance.

Remember to check out the TECH TIPS & RESOURCES page for information on a wide range of technology topics.

As a Nobel Prize-winning Berkeley poet, the author of today's featured poem needs little introduction for most of us, though the epic dimensions of his lifetime experiences and achievements are difficult to assimilate. By the time of his death in Poland in 2004, Czeslaw Milosz had already lived many lives -- as a great modern poet, of course, but also as a diplomat, a teacher, a scholar of totalitarianism and literature who was trained in the law, a memoirist and novelist, an outspoken anti-racist, anti-Fascist and anti-Communist who was active in the underground Warsaw resistance during the Second World War, a translator who spoke six languages, an influential anthologist and a global intellectual whose worldview, Catholic faith and conscience were challenged and ultimately shaped by his early years in Czarist Russia and Poland and, later, his underground and peripatetic life during, between and after two world wars in Lithuania and Poland, France and the United States.

After fleeing both German and Russian armies during the 1930s and 1940s, in 1951 he sought asylum from Stalinist Poland in France, and then went into exile in the United States in 1960 (after being denied entry during the McCarthy period). He became a professor at UC Berkeley, where he witnessed the Free Speech Movement, which he characterized as significant but naive, and where he was teaching when his Nobel Prize was announced in 1980. He moved back to post-Soviet Poland in 2000.

Today's poem is not characteristic of Milosz's greatest works of global conscience, but it seems appropriate for American audiences of "a certain age."

On October 25, 2022, the Ashby Village Events and Healthier Aging Teams presented an engaging discussion with Laurie Vollen, MD, MPH, who explained different types of cannabis and the benefits, as well as where and how to buy them.

If you missed this compelling talk, read the recap here and access a link to the event recording.

On November 13, 2022, the Ashby Village Exploring Creativity Group presented this fascinating conversation between Tricia and her daughter Rebecca about her new memoir, Overland Before the Hippie Trail: Kathmandu and Beyond with a Van a Man and No Plan.

Tricia discussed the adventurous lifestyle of world travel she and her husband experienced while on an open-ended honeymoon trip through Europe living in their Volkswagen van.

If you missed any part of this inspiring conversation, check out the recording at the Ashby Village YouTube channel by clicking the image below.

Over the last several years police departments around the world have purchased equipment that is typically deployed in military operations. In addition, training has been conducted on the use of this equipment. These developments have led some to say that police departments have become militarized.

This characterization was the topic of a Zoom webinar held on November 14, 2022, sponsored by the Task Force for Police Reform, a collaboration between Ashby Village’s Elder Action group and Berkeley Friends’ Racial Justice Action Team.

The topic was particularly pertinent with the passage of a California law (AB 481) that gave local governing bodies the authority to demand transparency in the ownership, acquisition and use of the equipment.

If you missed any part of this timely presentation, view the event recording at the Ashby Village YouTube channel by clicking the image below.

Jane B. is a new member of Ashby Village and an active artist looking for an apartment or house share in North Oakland or Berkeley. Please contact Jane at [email protected] with any information or opportunities that may be helpful.

From time to time, some village members have particular ride needs, including outside of the service area, that our Ashby Village volunteer drivers cannot fulfill. Some villagers also prefer not to use share services like Uber, Lyft and GoGoGrandparent for various reasons, and are interested in connecting with a professional driver that can be scheduled in advance.

If you are a professional driver and would like to explore becoming a provider for our village, please contact our office at (510) 204-9200 or [email protected].

Although Ashby Village will not be sponsoring exercise classes this winter, Ashby Village members can continue to do yoga with Nancy Yates on ZOOM at a special cost of $10 per class.

Classes in this 10-week series begin Thursday, December 1 and run through February 2. See class descriptions and details here.

To register, payment is required in advance to Nancy Yates via Zelle or by check. Contact Nancy at [email protected] or 415-346-8119.

Bay Area Reprographics Inc. is a family-owned and operated business located in Emeryville, California with over 30 years of experience in the printing industry.

We use our experience to deliver the best business solutions to small businesses, retail stores, nonprofit organizations, community groups and civic organizations -- and offer FREE pick-up and delivery on all local jobs.

Bay Area Reprographics was proud to support Ashby Village with fast, responsive customer service to print the annual Impact Report sent to villagers last week as part of the annual Fall fundraising campaign.

Visit our website at bayareareprographics.weebly.com or contact owner Jan Acuna for more information - (510) 985-1037, [email protected]

Overwhelmed by this digital world? Join us to advance your digital skills and ask questions about navigating technology. Read the event flyer here and register here.

Thursday, December 8 from 6:15-7:15pm

YMCA at 2600 Bancroft Way, Berkeley

Bruce Linde is a clock collector, enthusiast and repairer offering advice and support to Ashby Village members with mechanical clocks (sorry, no cuckoo clocks or watches).

Want to know what you just inherited? Is your clock worth repairing? Would you like to learn best practices for moving, installing, setting up, winding and maintaining your clock(s)?

Bruce is a member of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors (NAWCC), an aspiring Ashby Village Volunteer, and lives in the Oakland Hills. Contact him at [email protected].

Lizzy is an experienced music teacher and loves working with students of all ages. She also specializes in voice strengthening. Whether you’re ready to pick up piano or voice again or learn for the first time, Lizzy will bring a fresh perspective to learning music. To contact Lizzy, please email [email protected] or call (510) 703-2040. 

Ruth Palmer, longtime North Oakland Village member and one of our oldest villagers, died recently. She was 103.

A native Oaklander, Ruth was a child in the Fruitvale area when it truly was a vale of fruit— “orchards everywhere!” as she remembered. She spent her whole life in the East Bay, except for a brief period during World War II when she followed her husband, Ralph, to his Navy assignments on the east coast. Ruth and Ralph were married for over 70 years, and after he died in 2011 she lived alone and independently in their Montclair home until the end of her life. Ruth was always beautifully dressed and her home was immaculate. Asked by a visitor recently how she occupied her time, Ruth drew herself up and said very decidedly, “I work! It takes a lot of work to keep a house!”

Ruth and her husband did not have children, although they were close to Kerry Reiter and Kim Weichel, whose mother was a dear childhood friend of Ruth’s. Ralph ran his own butcher shop, Ralph’s Meat Market on MacArthur Boulevard, and Ruth did administrative and secretarial work. She loved to tell the story of saying “no” to Henry J. Kaiser. She was working in the legal department of Kaiser Companies when she was sent up to the executive floor to fill a temporary vacancy. Mr. Kaiser was so impressed with her work that he wanted her to stay. But Ruth didn’t like the executive suite, “too formal and quiet,” and said she wanted to go back to her own office.

And she did. As she put it, “Not many people said no to Henry J. Kaiser and made it stick!”

Ruth was a talented artist. She did beautiful and detailed painting on porcelain and taught china painting for many years. Until her eyesight failed, she also did watercolor painting, enjoyed making cards for special occasions, and illustrated an annual calendar that she sent to family and friends.

Ruth treasured her village connections and the volunteer drivers who took her shopping and to get her hair done, especially Phillip, her faithful weekly grocery shopper. She loved the NOV potlucks and always cooked something special. For Halloween she got out her collection of costumes from “dress-up nights” on cruises she and Ralph had taken. Usually she was a glamorous witch, but once, memorably, a cabaret dancer complete with red fishnet stockings.

Ruth was a strong character, with very definite opinions about how things should be. Modern life often frustrated her, with computers and smart phones that she wanted no part of, and voice mail that drove her nuts. But, as she said the week before she died, “I’ve had a long and good life and I had a good time wherever I was.”

What a wonderful thing to be able to say at 103!

We miss her.

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