29July
Update, Meditation Class. A Different Vibe At The Mansion These Days
by Jon Katz
The Mansion is one of the best experiences of my life, and I will always see it that way, no matter what the new owners do or don’t do with it.
An investment company purchased the mansion nearly a year ago, which has little bearing on where I began volunteering a decade ago. Everyone I knew or worked with – including many residents- is gone.
I don’t want to talk more about it. I feel about the Mansion like I think about my life: I won’t ever speak poorly about it. It has been a rich and meaningful experience for me and many others.
I continue to help residents in need when I learn of them; there are still some.
I am continuing my work; it is good work and essential.
This year, I’ve raised money for a computer, $600 in art supplies for the activity room, and several hundred dollars in shoes, clothes, and socks. I buy toothpaste, anti-bacterial soap, deodorant, blankets, stamps, stationery, computer pads, and fans. The Mansion Fund continues to do good: at Facebook, [emailprotected], Venmo, Jon Katz@Jon-Katz-13, by mail, Jon Katz, Mansion Fund, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12815, it is almost always low these days, hardly everyone I’ve worked with at the Mansion is gone.
I know how to find people there in need by myself, and I do.
Your donations, no matter the size, still make a significant impact. The mansion’s resident needs are still prevalent, and I am dedicated to finding and addressing them.
I will be honest with you, as I always have; I’ve never seen, met with, or spoken with the people who bought the Mansion. I know the staff has shrunk, and few have been replaced. I am still waiting to learn about the company’s plans for the Mansion, and no one has ever attempted to contact me. As a volunteer, it’s not really my place to know.
I get the feeling that I am just expected to go one of these days, and if asked, I will. But I’m not going on my own. My meditation class is down to two or three people, and the Memory Care unit I visited so happily with Zinnia has only a few residents. For now, it is closed to COVID-19.
I am very loyal to the place and the people left in my class. I’m not walking away from them or from anyone else who seeks my help or that of the Army of Good. We have done an awful lot of good there, and that fills my heart. I will always carry that in my heart and be grateful for the wonderful people who made our work possible and are not doing the same thing for the Cambridge Food Pantry.
There are always people in need and always people who want to help. There is a lot of anger, lying, and cruelty in the country now, but there is also a great deal of good. That is the story of the human condition. I know which side I want to be on.
Today, I read from Joan Chittister’s excellent work on age. The residents listened to it and said they loved it. We meditated for 8 minutes, something unimaginable just six months ago. They are good people, and I am very proud of our class. Zinnia is much loved and has done much good. Volunteers come and go; dogs like that are pretty rare.
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It makes me a bit sad to hear that your Meditation class, which has grown so nicely and embraced by the residents since its inception, ..is down to a much reduced size (today, at least). There is no doubt in my mind that the changes you sense in the air……are changes the residents clearly feel as well. I would think they definitely feel uncertain, frightened, and uneasy with some of the changes.
Susan MReply
Thanks, Susan; a lot of the people in my class are gone, and I don’t see them returning..I’ll hang in there; it makes me a bit sad, too. What on earth are investment trusts doing taking over assisted care?
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Thank you Jon for the update, I have been wondering how things are there, and especially the residents.
It is disheartening
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I usually take a couple or more extra sets of toothpaste, soap, deodorant, nonalcoholic anti cavity rinse (Walgreens has cheapest), eyebrow tweezers, nail clippers, stamps, stationery. I often take a couple copies of Winnie the Pooh, a story lived by elders too.
We are in the monopoly stage of capitalism. Tech has allowed fined-tuned skimming of costs;and for obvious reasons too few legislators care much abt this industry. Very sad.
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