Send Us Some Goodness ... Very Soon

The George G. Glenner Alzheimer’s Family Centers has been nominated as a favorite charity on the Show Us Your Goodness web site, sponsored by snack maker riceworks. Numerous people, from former board members to current caregivers, are joining in to help our organization become a semi-finalist for the People’s Pick. Grand prize for the eventual winner is $20,000.

Click here to learn more about how you too can nominate Glenner as your favorite charity. All nominations due by Sunday, February 28, so don’t wait!

Here’s info on nominations from the Web site:
1. To nominate your favorite charity, simply tell us the name and a few details on what you find most inspiring. Click the nominate button on the right that takes you to a short nomination form.
2. From all nominations received, thirty-three (33) charities will be chosen as Semi-Finalists by a panel of riceworks® judges.
Starting March 16, 2010, we'll remind everybody to return here to vote the "People's Pick" Award from one of these thirty-three (33) Semi-Finalists. The decision for the Grand Prize winner and two Finalists will be based on final agreement by six independent judges, based on the judging criteria.
The Grand Prize Charity winner receives $20,000 and the two Finalists receive $5,000 each. And each of the 30 winning charities for the "Sponsor's Choice" award receives $1,000.
3. Bonus! For submitting your charity's winning story, the nominators of the three top Finalists will win $100 worth of riceworks® products! So nominate now.

Happy 103rd Birthday, Beulah!

The Glenner Alzheimer’s Family Center in Hillcrest this week celebrated the birthday of Beulah Cole Magruder, who turned 103 years young on February 20.

Beulah has been part of our Hillcrest Center since May 2007 and has led a colorful and adventurous life. She is the embodiment of her favorite saying: “Good Better Best, Never Let Her Rest, ‘Til the Good is Better, and The Better is Best.”

She was born in Calhoun County, Iowa in 1907 and attended a one-room schoolhouse, which she traveled to and from by pony. A lifelong feminist, she volunteered for years alongside Alice Paul and other suffragists at the National Women’s Party headquarters in Washington, D.C., and was one of the first female auditors in the General Accounting Office.

Soon after her retirement from the GAO at age 70, she became a highly active volunteer. At age 77, she volunteered for the XXIII Olympics in Los Angeles and Jimmy Carter’s Habitat for Humanity. When she was 85, she bought an RV and drove the Alaska-Canada Highway (“The Alcan”) with a friend. At age 96, she traveled by Amtrak from San Diego to Fonda, IA for a high school reunion. To this day, she votes in every election.

Last year she was asked the secret to a long life. “Word hard and do your best. Don’t ever give up. Get up and get going.”

Said her daughter, Josie, with whom Beulah lives: “No matter what challenges Mom’s had to face, she’s just kept putting one foot in front of the other and pushed on ahead with a positive ‘can-do’ attitude and wonderful sense of humor.”

Helping Spread Good Health in Chula Vista

Liz Reinhofer, our Community Liason, talks to a Norman Park Health Fair participant.

Glenner Alzheimer’s Family Centers corporate staffers handed out a lot of resource information on caring for loved ones with dementia at today’s annual Health Fair held this morning at the Norman Park Senior Center in Chula Vista.

Seniors, family members and medical personnel from nearby hospitals stopped by our booth to express interest in programs such as our adult day care programs and support groups for caregivers. A flier for our respite care program called “Take a Break” was among the most popular items taken by fair-goers.

The “Take a Break” program offers the following services in a homelike setting:

• Continuous supervision and monitoring by RNs
• Continence care by dementia care specialists
• Nutritious hot meals and snacks
• Structured and therapeutic social and recreational activities
• Professionally facilitated weekly support group meetings
• Information and referrals




Other booths at Wednesday’s fair included everything from local hospitals and hospice care to headwear makers specializing in cancer patients. There also was plenty of great information on healthy living and even free massages!

For those in South Bay, we have a lively center located at 280 Saylor Drive, next to Fredericka Manor. Daily walks within the facility’s grounds are much anticipated by those participants who love the outdoors and whose caregivers enjoy knowing their loved one is getting lots of fresh air in a safe setting. If you’d like more information on that facility, call 619-420-1703.

Welcome to Our Family

Welcome to the George G. Glenner Alzheimer’s Family Centers, Inc., which was the first in the nation to provide adult day care for families affected by Alzheimer’s disease. Today we continue to expand our mission and reach into the San Diego community to help meet a growing need for the highest quality of care for loved ones impacted by this disease, which today is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States.

Today we stand on the brink of a national epidemic unlike anything we have experienced before. As the largest number of Americans ever reaches retirement age, Alzheimer’s (AD) and other similar progressive and fatal diseases such as Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, and Lewy-body threaten life as we know it. There are over 90,000 families right here in San Diego coping with these diseases every day.

The George G. Glenner Alzheimer’s Family Centers, Inc. has been serving San Diego families touched by AD and other dementias for over 27 years. Caring for the whole family has been our highest priority through adult day care, education, support groups, crisis intervention, referrals, and financial assistance. We currently have facilities in Chula Vista (South Bay), Encinitas (North County) and Hillcrest (central San Diego).

We intend for this blog to keep our community of families, staff and donors informed of upcoming events, support services, legislation, research and myriad other topics of interest to those in San Diego County in search of information and assistance.
Again, welcome to the Glenner Centers community, where everyone is considered family.

(Photo: Our corporate headquarters, which is located across the street from the GGG Alzheimer's Family Center in Hillcrest at the corner of 4th and Pennsylvannia avenues.)