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News Stories
Nogales International
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DayBreak
"Caregivers take a DayBreak", Program gives care, support to elderly, disabled.
Caring for loved ones who are elderly or disabled can take over caregivers' lives, making them ill in the process. Fortunately, DayBreak Adult Day Health Care offers caregivers much-needed relief, while giving their loved ones opportunities to socialize.
By: Danielle Sottosanti, ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Tempie Beaman - Assistant Disaster Response Coordinator chosen for Southern California
Southwest California Lutheran Newsletter, May 2006 - Disaster Response Coordinator Chosen for Southern California
Donna Buckles - LSS-SW Refugee Resettlement Program
The church can provide refugees with extra support, both materially and spiritually. Congregations contribute time, commitment and resources. The church is a caring family for resettling refugees seven days a week.
"American Baptist Churches USA:Long-time partner in resettlement" "Monday" Church World Service Feb. 2006, Vol 25. No. 2. story by Carol Fouke-Mpoyo
Daughter of Righteous Gentiles
continues tradition of caring
Toetie Oberman
By Kaye Patchett
Special to the AJP
Toetie Oberman, founder of FIRST, a Tucson interfaith crisis help line, has a formidable family tradition to uphold. Her parents, recognized by Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in 1982 as Righteous Gentiles, sheltered Jews and other refugees during World War II while Gestapo slept and ate under the same roof.
Just as my parents came to the rescue of the marginalized --- the Jewish people --- then, so I try to help the new marginalized today: the lonely, the suicidal and the mentally ill,” says Oberman. “
Oberman, a Christian, learned the meaning of privation at age 13, in the German-occupied Netherlands. Her parents, Hendrik and Ida Reesink, worked in the underground movement throughout WWII. Only after the war did she learn that the 15 “extended family” members living in the large isolated Reesink home outside the village of Brumen, were really opposition members or Jews in hiding from the Germans.
Oberman’s parents hid Hans and Jo Spier, the college-aged sons of Jewish former neighbors, in their gardener’s cottage from 1942 to 1945. “In the last two weeks of the war we were in the direct firing line,” says Oberman. The two young men moved into the main house, but “because there were Germans scattered all over the house, they were hidden behind the paneling and in other secret places.” Oberman set eyes on them just once, when she ventured downstairs unexpectedly one night. “My mother told me to forget I’d seen them. In a war, you don’t ask questions, you obey --- life depends on it.”
When the occupation started, everyday life continued as usual, Oberman says; but by the end of the war, “Many people died of hunger. It was like a noose that very slowly tightened and tightened.” And she recalls, “The whole justice system was against you, in your own country.” However, she says, “It was definitely worse for the Jewish people. They were persecuted for who they were.”
Oberman’s parents are mentioned in the Holocaust Museum in New York , and in a book recently published by Yad Vashem, recounting the names and stories of all the Righteous Gentiles in the Netherlands . Oberman’s late husband, Heiko, also from a Dutch Righteous Gentile family, was a history professor at the University of Arizona , formerly from Tuebingen University in Gemany. After the war, he wrote a book titled The Roots of Anti-Semitism. The Jewish people play an enormous role in European history,” says Oberman. “We neglect that to our detriment.”
The war has taught me to be grateful” she says. “To close your eyes to what is going on at the fringes of society --- that’s where evil gets a chance.”
Oberman’s deep-rooted desire to help others led her to work for crisis hotlines for 25 years, both in Germany and Tucson, before starting FIRST in 1997. The interfaith hotline encourages callers to find strength from their own religious faiths or spirituality. Oberman recruits volunteers of all faiths, but says she is in “dire need” of Jewish volunteers to better reach out to Jewish people in need.
Billie Kozolchyk, who volunteers on the Jewish Community Relations Council Yom Ha Shoah committee, is a longtime supporter of Oberman’s work. She says, “Here is a Gentile woman, and her Gentile parents, and they are involved in tikkun olam –a major Jewish tenet – and she needs our help.”
For information on FIRST, or to volunteer, contact:
Rachael Seitz 520-748-2300 ext. 28
rseitz@lss-sw.org
To reach the hot-line, call 918-HOPE (918-4673).
Page A-6 August 8 – August 14, 2005 Apache Junction The News
AJ Adult Day Care
Day Break provides day care for adults
By Kathy L. Hall
The News
Day Break, a program that provides a safe place during the day for all types of adults who require it is funded by Lutheran Social Ministry of the Southwest. There are currently 22 clients enrolled but there’s room for more.
Located at 1050 W. Superstition Blvd, Apache Junction, behind the Epithany Lutheran Church, the program is intended to give respite to care givers of adults. Many of the clients are seniors but there are currently 6 young people in the program.
Kathy Dodd, site manager and a registered practical nurse, points out that often the clients in the program simply need physical and mental stimulation.
Although they work with the Alzheimer’s Association, Area Agency on Aging, both Pinal and Maricopa County Long Term Care programs as well as the Parkinson’s Foundation, Dodd says “affliction is not needed.”
“Sometimes the spouse of a senior is reluctant to bring in their loved one because they think it’s just one step closer to a nursing home, when in reality is one stop further away,” she added.
According to Dodd, Day Break is the only licensed day care facility in the area. There are recreation activities, such as fishing, adapted baseball, golf and bowling, and mental enrichment activities like spelling bees and work searches.
Dodd, who has been with the program for four years now, is passionate about the work they do. She says they treat people the way they would want to be treated and always “with dignity.” Their staff is highly trained with a 1-5 staff to client ratio.
Fees are $8 an hour on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays and $10 an hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The rate difference is due to the fact that on Tuesdays and Thursdays the program specializes in clients with brain disorders and more staff is required on those days. Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCS) will pay the fees for clients enrolled in its program.
Day Break hours are 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.
For more information please call 480-671-3086.
LSS-SW Disaster Relief: With major grants from Lutheran Disaster Response (LDR)($203,702) and United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR)($285,714), LSMS has been named the Regional Disaster Response agency for the southwest (Arizona, New Mexico, Southern Nevada and Southern California). LSS-SW/LDR has a strong reputation for Disaster Preparedness Training and for assisting survivors in the long term recovery process after a disaster. For more information about Disaster Preparedness Training or long term recovery, contact Regional Director for Disaster Response, La'Tresa Jester at 520-748-2300 or by email ljester@lss-sw.org.
HUD awards LSS-SW 3 year, $375,000 R.O.S.S. (Resident Opportunity for Self Sufficiency) grant. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded LSS-SW a major three year grant to promote and sustain independence and quality of life among the elderly/disabled residents in three Tucson public housing complexes. LSS-SW was asked to come up with a 25% in-kind match of the federal dollars and in fact, increased the match to 51%. Thirteen Lutheran and Episcopal Churches and four local human service agencies each pledged up to as much as 200 volunteer hours per year to work with residents to help them maintain their independence and enhance their quality of life.
Tennis anyone? Low-income and special needs children are once again learning the values of fun, discipline, hard work and self-improvement thanks to the renewal of our grant from the United States Tennis Association (USTA) Educational Foundation. Last year, in partnership with the Arizona Baptist Children's Services and the Southwest Leadership Foundation, Tennis4Anyone served over 300 children at two sites. With the grant increase to $25,000 LSS-SW has been able to add Tennis4Anyone to the Sacaton School District on the Gila River Indian Community. LSS-SW continues to seek funds from other interested sources.
Senior Services Breaks Records For Client Services in Pinal and Gila Counties. Client services in rural Pinal and Gila Counties have more than doubled since the beginning of this year. In addition to being awarded a new contract by the Pinal Gila Council for Senior Citizens to serve the rural areas of Gila County, intensified marketing efforts have helped our numbers soar, and there is no sign of a decline in the foreseeable future. For more information, please contact the LSS-SW East Valley Service Center at 480-325-4901
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