October 2006 Vol. 25. No. 10

Published by the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in Eureka, California. HSRC is a non-profit community-based organization offering services for senior citizens, multi-generational families and caregivers.

Reading Service of the Redwoods Volunteers
Medicare Rx: October dates can affect prescription plans
California's Universal Health Care - could it have worked?
Senior Aqua Aerobics: A new group likes getting all wet
Del Norte STRONG classes
McKinleyville - Health services at the senior center
Fortuna-Feeling dizzy? Feeling tired? Maybe it's your pills
Diabetes and obesity: a modern day epidemic
Senior softball: World champ gets his ring

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Volunteers Nancy Streufert, left, and Brenda Zwiefelhofer read local newspapers, live and on the air, from the Reading Service of the Redwoods' studio in the Commercial Building in downtown Eureka. Listeners can tune to RSR at 10 each weekday morning to hear their morning newspapers. See schedule below. Photo by Barbara Clark

If you can see the print well enough to read this article, you might not need the help of the Reading Service of the Redwoods (RSR). There are many who do. And as we age, many more of us will face age-related sight loss, such as macular degeneration.

Volunteers of the Reading Service of the Redwoods dedicate their time to bringing publications such as Senior News to those with vision loss, long-term illness, stroke or other disabilities which make it difficult to read printed information.

For several years, RSR volunteers have broadcast the readings of several local newspapers, live on KEET-TV's SAP (Second Audio Program). Tune in at a scheduled time and you can hear your local paper. Pretty simple.

It's free, too, thanks to KEET's donation of the use of the SAP channel. (If you've had the experience of watching a cooking show or "Teletubbies" on Channel 13, but were hearing people reading letters to the editor, it means you've inadvertently activated your SAP function and are hearing RSR's broadcast instead.)

Not everyone has a television with that SAP capability, though; or, in some cases, it's just too difficult to find on a complicated television menu. For that reason, Reading Service of the Redwoods will soon begin to transmit programs on an FM radio sub-carrier.

Listeners will need to borrow and use a special pre-tuned receiver from RSR. The radio will already be tuned to the reading service's frequency. RSR will also re-broadcast its programs at times which might be more convenient for listeners.

If you have friends or loved ones who are unable to read printed information because of sight loss or other physical disabilities or illness, encourage them to contact the Reading Service of the Redwoods for a radio receiver application. After some preliminary testing, RSR will be ordering radios for an initial group of more than 100 listeners.

Reading Service of the Redwoods can be reached at 443-0884, or write to RSR at 350 E St., Suite 109, Eureka, CA 95501. It is a tax-exempt nonprofit organization.

Look for RSR's schedule each month on the back page of Senior News.

Joan Sikkins is the founder of Reading Service of the Redwoods.

RSR's schedule

• 10-11 a.m. daily, Times-Standard and Mondays at 11 a.m.
• Senior News is read on the first two Tuesdays at 11 a.m.
• the Arcata Eye is read at 11 a.m. on Wednesdays
• the McKinleyville Press is read at 11 a.m. on Thursdays
• the Humboldt Beacon and Ferndale Enterprise are read at 11 a.m. Fridays