Your Senior Center staff, Left to right,
Jennifer Peterson and Leslie Greathouse.
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The Senior Center is open daily 10-2 with a limited activity schedule in September.
The Senior Center is located at 580 Circle J Drive, at the corner of Circle J and Cahuilla Road. (Across from the high school football field.)
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Resource Center Schedule:
Food Pantry Every Tuesday
The Food Pantry at the Resource Center is open every Tuesday from 12-4 PM. It is a welcoming and relaxed place to volunteer and/or get healthy food for your family.
Volunteers please come at 10 AM.
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Silvia Arambula, Resource Center Manager
Borrego Community Resource Center
September Calendar
Monday, September 19, 12:30 - 3:30 PM
St. Barnabas Episcopal Church Food Bank
2680 Country Club Road. (Volunteers arrive from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM)
Thursday, September 8 and Monday, September 19 at 10:30 AM, St. Richard Catholic Church Food Bank. 611 Church Lane. (Volunteers arrive at 9:00)
Thursday, September 8 and Wednesday, September 21, 5-6 PM Food Box distribution at the Borrego Springs Library. Open to all families and community members.
Every Tuesday, 12-4 PM Feeding Borrego Pantry-Style food bank at the Borrego Community Resource Center.
587 Palm Canyon Drive (east side of The Mall) (Volunteers arrive at 10 AM)
Tuesday September 6 from 1-3 PM, a team of Social Workers will be at the Resource Center to help folks apply for CalFresh (food stamps), Medi-Cal, and CalWorks (unemployment), and will provide additional social service assistance as well.
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Borrego Springs Library Offers
No Cost Internet
Connection Hardware
Library card holders in need can now check out a chromebook laptop and a mobile AT&T hot spot at no cost for up to a year.
Cristin McVey, Head Librarian, said "This program is intended for folks who have no internet access at their homes, especially young people and seniors."
McVey also rolled out a new "Digital Friday" program in which library staff wil be available to assist library members with their technology issues such as help with computers, tablets and phones. "Our staff is friendly and tech-savvy, so we are able to help with quite a few issues that folks run into as they make their way through the digital world..."
Visit our beautiful library soon and ask about these great new programs. And then take some time to admire the architecture, the facilitation provided by the amazing library staff, and the generous donors who made it become a reality.
COOL ZONE HOURS
Our fabulous library is also a cool zone for folks to take refuge from the summer heat. The hours are Wednesday through Saturday 10 AM - 6 PM, Sunday 12 Noon to 6 PM, and Monday 10 AM to 6 PM.
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Hugs at The Children's Center
Children's Center Report
The Children's Center is accepting applications for students and teachers at this time.
Thank you again to all the businesses and private donors who donated or pledged to donate to keep the Children's Center open, including the Borrego Springs Rotary Foundation, Ram's Hill, La Casa del Zorro, de Anza Country Club, The Springs RV Resort, Carlee's Place, Fredericks Construction, and Anza-Borrego Coldwell Banker Real Estate.
These community businesses support our working families. Please patronize them whenever possible!
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Teresa West
Children's Center Supervisor
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Support the Youth and Seniors Centers
and our Programs
For 50 years now, the Borrego Springs Youth and Seniors Centers (BSYSC) has been serving our community. Ongoing situations have created the need for us all to step up do more.
To meet the growing needs of our village, BSYSC has expanded our mission by assuming the operation of the Children’s Center and the Borrego Community Resource Center. Our work to enhance the lives of the oldest, youngest and most vulnerable members of our community is essential to the vitality of our community.
If you have any questions or need further information about the Youth and Seniors Centers or our programs, call Daniel Wright any time at 206-948-8268
Will you step up and support these programs with a donation today?
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Volunteers Power Borrego Youth and Seniors
Resource Center
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The Borrego Community Resource Center is fast becoming the beating heart of Borrego Springs. In addition to access to social services, free legal and mental health counseling, hundreds of families come every week to get healthy food. The key to making these things happen is our team of volunteers. Without them, the food pantry simply would not happen.
All of the food, whether it is fresh produce, cans, bottles, boxes or bags must be loaded in, sorted, shelved.
Every Tuesday our volunteers arrive at around 10 AM to begin setting up what is essentially a buffet line for groceries. Eggs (when we have enough money to buy them) must be taken out of the bulk packaging and placed into single-dozen cartons. We are talking about well over 200 dozen eggs here!
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Some produce such as apples, potatos and onions, arrive in large bins and must be repackaged into smaller bags. Other produce such as celery and leafy vegetables must be separated and presented so that our families can easily take their share.
Other volunteers drive boxes of food to the home bound who can not come to the Center.
Resource Center Manager Silvia Arambula works with the volunteers and oversees the work with the food. The work they do together would not be possible without this strong volunteer effort. "I am so thankful for all their help and their friendship as well. I really appreciate every one of them", she said.
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Back row, left to right, Lorenz Hilkes, Craig Johnson, John Curley and Scot Martin.
Front row, Lisa Casperson, Silvia Arambula, Michelle Gillis, Reynaldo Gutierrez.
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One outstanding volunteer is John Curley, who literally devotes his entire day each Tuesday to the Youth and Seniors of Borrego Springs. Each Tuesday morning he leaves his home in Borrego at around 6:30 AM for the one-hour-plus drive to Ramona to pick up meals for the homebound. He brings the meals directly back to the Senior Center where they are kept frozen and delivered twice a week to our homebound seniors. John then goes straight over to the Resource Center to begin helping with the Food Pantry, where he will be working until nearly 5 PM. |
John is a former full-time science teacher at Borrego Springs Middle School and still works as a substitute for the Borrego Springs Unified School District.
It is dedicated, hard working people like John that define this outstanding community of care. I asked him why he gives so selflessly of his valuable time and he said, "We were taught that it is better to give than to receive. Once I started giving my time to the community I began feeling very good about it."
Every one of us who are involved in these ongoing efforts to feed, educate and care for our community expresses our gratitude to John and all the volunteers.
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Fund-a-Student Scholarship Program Takes Off at
Borrego Children's Center
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This is Maria. She is 4 years old. She is a student at the Borrego Springs Children's Center. She loves going to the center because she has so many friends there. She loves the teachers, too. They have a lot of fun things for the students to do. She has been learning while she has fun playing with her friends. But she cannot go to the school every day because of the cost.
Maria's mom works as a housekeeper. She does not have work every day, especially in the off season when many homeowners are gone for the season and the hotels don't have much work either.
Maria's dad is a chef in a local restaurant. He's pretty busy during the tourist season, but there is not much work from mid-April through October. He also works as a gardener for some of the snowbirds who are here in the busy months, but that work is slow also in the off season.
Maria's mom and dad are hard workers, but there never seems to be enough money to do everything they want to do for her. Things are even harder now that gasoline and groceries have gone up so much in cost.
Tuition at the Children's Center is $30 per day. That includes all day preschool and daycare, breakfast, lunch and a snack. There are a number of families that can't afford to send their child every day. There are many more families in Borrego Springs that can't afford to send their children to preschool at all.
Would you fund the tuition of a student like Maria? Would you fund one week a month? Would you sponsor her for even one day a month?
Happily, we now have two students receiving scholarships to attend the Children's Center. The Fund-a-Student program is making a difference for these families. Will you step up and help more families?
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Senior Center Staff
Leslie Greathouse, Executive Director
Jennifer Peterson, Assistant
Children's Center Staff
Teresa West, Center Supervisor
Maria Abrica, Teacher
Alicia Arias. Teacher
Lucia Hernandez, Teacher
Ashley Hernandez, Teacher
Nohemi Troncoso, Staff Member
Nancy Wright, Volunteer
Youth and Seniors Center
Board of Directors
Daniel Wright, President
Briana Puzzo, Vice President
Betty Schubert, Secretary
Barb Stephenson, Treasurer
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