2/27/17, sucasa, 10am

At Annunciata senior center today.  Early Monday. Got there at 10:30, and saw there were a few seniors waiting for me. I was surprised to work upstairs, so I had to shlep all the supplies and work from the dining area. In the end we had 15 people, and I was quite busy making sure they all had their projects set up. My 5 elders from last Friday returned, and they anted to go to the next level and make pop up cards of their characters. It was very satisfying meeting each elder at their level. I do have to be really ready for a potential influx of new people. So far, shpwing them a little animation from their childhood and having them create characters and cartoon environments works very well. There was one woman who was frustrated because of her inability to see clearly. I think I will bring larger paper and fatter markers fro her to use next time.
Patricia, the center boss informed me that she had so many classes and contractors, that she was still juggling my schedule around. I think she wanted me to agree to one day of work, but in order to meet the 55 contact requirements of the SUCASA grant, I would need at least 2 sessions a week. The elders seem to enjoy my program, so I hope we can come to a calm agreement. I'm of the opinion that we should have more than one program run at a time to give people a choice, but the boss doesn't like to 'pit' programs against each other. It's awkward to come in as a new person to a center with history. Hopefully, the Mondays and Thursdays at 10am plan will work out.  I'll try to be as flexible as possible (although I have already changed to morning from afternoons and rescheduled my Fridays).
The grant cycles are very awkward times to schedule around.  By the time we find out about the grant, the sites we use are already booked.

Today's SUCASA class.

Everything went really well. The center seems a little 'busy'. The center leader had a drp-in meeting with the city food org, and it seems like there's so much being scheduled to meet new requirements, etc...

I was asked if I could do mornings, and if I could change my Fridays to Thursday mornings. That will work fine. Lots of seniors leave after lunch, or really want Bingo.  I just hope we can build a return audience.

I showed them some of the cartoons from the 30s and 40s, and hoped they could remember those days of their youth. They seemed to have fun, laughing and reminiscing. After wards, I did the cartoon character creation workshop class for 5 of them. They seemed to really enjoy it, and pledged to return on Monday. It was very fun for me, and hopefully, for them as well.

Monday I will be there at 10:30 with bells on.

First day at Sister Annunciatta's Elder Center in the Bronx!

Tomorrow is my first day at Sister Annunciata Bethell Senior Center. I'm a little nervous because it's my first time teaching a series of classes for the senior population. I've read up a bit, designed a curriculum, and hope that it will be enough to enable me to to do these elders right. 

I have to remember that there will different abilities in the same room... and while its not as diverse as I expected a Bronx neighborhood center to be, there is still a lot of shared history with my own beloved elders. 

Tomorrow I plan to go in lightly, have a conversation, maybe ask them a few questions about their lives. I plan to learn a lot from them.

Since I'm a cartoonist and major nerd, I'm going to try to re-introduce to them some of the animation that we all were raised with. Fleischer's Popeye, Superman and Betty Boop, with little Mighty Mouse thrown in, and the big daddy of old cartoons; Bugs Bunny. I'm only going to ask them to sketch then... just simple character designs in cartoon styles (after a demo, of course). Maybe with a little background history on these cartoons will bring stories and memories of that time period forward. Free-form cartoon animals or heroes will be fun, I hope. Wish me luck. ;)

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