workshops and we've been using my book and people have been learning so much about themselves and about their businesses and one of the exercises i had everyone do a thank you know to their business and one of the women in the group couldn't thank me enough for that exercise because she said she was just focusing on getting more business and not realizing her at what she said complex and her business so take a piece of paper grab a cup of coffee or a cup of tea and write a thank you note to your business and let me know what you discover today we have a very special guest and i know barbara about three years and barbara prince is the development of reactor for the princeton senior resource center and i been volunteering my services for her committee and what they do is they have fun really if there is and we've been having such a good time van square dancing and different things like that so i invited barbara to come and join us today to tell us about some of the upcoming functions that you're going to be ha fundraising and now i've been at the princeton senior research center as you said for about three years and have absolutely loved working there and this is for me at sort of a transition between working very full time as i did it mercer county community college and working sort of part time but really with a fantastic team of people who are genuinely care about the welfare of all people but in particular seniors in this community and in the surrounding communities and their caregivers which is really essential you know it's one of the key things that we tend to focus only  on the patient but the family that's taken care of the patient gets ignored and so we really try and provide as much of that support as we can and the resources and knowing where to go to get various services so that's you know in a nutshell my background has i'm familiar with being in education so for me it's a great combination of being education and fundraising right and that's really great and i always tell the story i had a couple of friends in when i retired and i started my own business and they said you know why don't you go to the princeton senior center go in there  so i went and i was shocked right that you know like such educated people you know and it was really great meeting everyone and i've been there three years now they bring a lot of skills that i don't have and our department sort of works very team based and great fallen tears like yourself and others who have come in and helped with different events and even some of the mant monday in things like you know getting the letters out getting the phone calls made getting read decorations and brought in or whatever so and i know that you've been very valuable with ted talks yes so yes so it's been fun but it's been my second  character development of the social services that are needed by a town from there in one thousand seventy four it grew in one nine hundred eighty seven we had a volunteer program that was started by barbara print now i believe and it is of the director at the time of the center barbara's been a long time volunteer and in fact is going to be an honorary of this year's major event which w talk about later which is the home friends program so great so that volunteers would go in and assist people who may be home bound maybe bring in the groceries help them get their mail help them get the doctor's office again be a companion it's way beyond meals on wheels strawberry and it's really dropping in and meeting the need that is that is there and then in nineteen  believes in the early ninety's we moved in as well to our second facility in the susan patterson building where we have most of our classes although there are several classes  caught building is called the municipal units mobility in the old borough hall right we've got the evergreen forum which is fifty courses a year that are really designed for lifelong learning in every subject chinese literature young young writers woody allen movies then we have other groups like cosmologists that  religiously every single week to talk about the cause of the squids is you know phenomenal it's a very different center of the one think so for a senior center our objective is to keep active bright engage people active our we're here doing all sorts of different things exactly and one thing that i really love about it is that you have an opportunity to participate in different things well we have twenty five community partners or maybe more but close to twenty five and so you are museums been a very good supporter oh that's great and it was so interesting and i learned so much you know it was really great and  is the changing landscape for nonprofits because it's really changed in the lives for you it has development and nonprofits have changed dramatically when i started in development at thirty something years ago you would write a grant for fifty one hundred thousand dollars and you would get that grant for fifty or one hundred thousand dollars and there were not as many organizations vying for non government dollars or corporate dollars right and the landscape has changed quite a bit from the center of non profits i recently read that seventy four percent responding of from the survey responding organizations were reported that their services have increased their staff has had to increase but the amount of money that they are netting after all right you a challenge a pleasant challenge but a challenge forty two of the responding organizations reported that they had received more funding but had their expenses go way up because the services that were right heard of that organization had increased so that yakking had to increase so that other services and we're finding that ourselves a p s r c we're finding that the great news is we have more than we can handle with with evergreen form and we're struggling to find additional spaces to hold the masses because we see the need we see the for the classes and yet if if that happens that always on you have to have staff to coordinate where those classes going to be you have to pay rent for facilities that we otherwise we're using in our own space but we've run out of s find a wheelchair if they need and we'll be there to find a health coordinator if they need one if they don't have a family member nearby but you know again it takes a staffing to do that and time and then the other things that we try and do is keep as many of our classes as reasonably priced or free as we can so the evergreen form has a class but the ted talks for instance don't socialize ridge on tuesdays does not some of  logistics of finding a space and parking and everything else sight so p s i see has shared in that notoriety that it's harder to raise money there i fewer sources and more competition for th dollar again and you know so we're very appreciative of those individuals and those corporations who wish to be our partners and i went to something and they had us now with the computing and he was great yeah i can i just put a new computer and i had no idea what to do right and he set it up for me and i've been able to do you think my new computer so it was it was really great bloomberg has been just a phenomenal community partner and not only do we have volunteers who come to almost all of our events including our upcoming events we're going to have an event next week  eleventh which maybe after this show airs and we're going to have our barbecue on june eighteenth and again we've got bloomberg volunteers but they were also a corporate partner and sponsor when we did our fortieth gala anniversary yes and what is are saying fund raising mission well our mission is to make sure that when our doors can stay opened and that our programs can say available to as many people as would like to come and in some cases as in the case of evergreen form we have an oversubscription so right you know we have many cases that that is it we want to be sure that classes are fordable we do understand that if somebody is on a fixed income they're on a fixed income and that they don't necessarily want or feel that they're in a position to  wish and or a fee for everything they do on the other hand we want to make sure in development that people understand that fees in themselves do not cover all of the cost of running that gallic committee we got a bunch of experiences because we've all eyes you know you have a silent auction or something people don't want another mode or picture or or place settings exactly  the princeton tour company that was a very they were wonderful they donated it for us but i realized you know local businesses are also inundated so we have to be very careful about not out over over asking them we are not the only nonprofit who asks for support we run that so our mission in development is to try and bring in as many grants as we can to support various programs and among those programs are things like the grandpas programs that they though that grandparent and that that sarah grandparent that group of students that they're eating to bond throughout the year and we have some grandparent pals who have been doing it for over twenty years and  started so that's been a wonderful partnership but there aren't some public school right and then our other mission is to make sure that we run a super major event they are there are a political satirical musical troupe originally thirty years ago or so they started as legislative aides who you know had probably been graduates of the triangle vacation to florida go on the vacation right florida you know things and all of these things will be have been donated to us so it will be a revenue stream that again will help us provide the social services that we need to keep the class prices either zero or as low as possible and to keep our staffing what it needs to be and right and in the three years even that i've been here our staffing has had to grow we are constantly  requested for information on what do i do with mom i'm not sure that she's you know competent to live by herself or she can absolutely live by herself but she's lonely and needs you know stimulus what of transportation is available in this kind of noise and we help coordinate all of you know and so you know like we're getting older which i hate to say this but you know we're not twenty four anymore  including the prince and hospital and for a very reduced fee and i'm going to guess that the re dollars are so you know you ride within this community to get to a doctor's appointment to get to the senior center you know there's a class you want to be taking in you don't have a car you aren't able to drive it's frightening to become to lose your independence when you lose the ability to comfortably drive which again one of the big things that we try and do is have all of our programs during daylight hours right you know we don't very rarely do we have something that's an evening program you know our barbecue is in the summer it'll go i don't know eight so it won't even be dark by then but it will it's not during the regular nine to five but we do try and have our programs pretty much of a nine to five for that reason for that we know that and i think any other huge underuse underutilization of th of the center are a lot of my contemporaries are arguing with their parents they are adjusting to can my folks live at home do they need to have somebody who comes in every day or twice a week if if we consider moving to assisted living what are the elements that are most important to you know my family my siblings and myself just staying to what my parents can do and a lot of what the social workers and our second director susan hoskins who are in this herself a social worker and really phenomenal people can help work out a lot of ah i'm dealing with you know such and such and my mother lives you know four towns away from here and i go come in we you know if we don't have the resources for you we have the resources to tell you where to go in your mother's community  what are some of the upcoming a van you know for the community thank you well so beyond our fans that are coming up the barbecue which is going to be on june eighteenth which is you know and again we try and keep as many of our of our advance as low prices are possible so that runs under forty dollars and that's dinner and dance and all that much fun and it's fun it is really fun i've got a great line dance caller not have any experience that we know i th fifth sort of the sandwich generation those who are dealing with their kids going off to college and their parents figuring out where they want to downsize to right and still stay connected and still staying gauge so we're going to have a conference we have a fall conference which runs for the majority of a saturday we have several speakers so that somebody can go to two or three sessions in a day was we have a number of our vendors who have been and will supporters of ours great great places we have you know atrium health care that's up by ranger we have acorn clan which is assisted living and right progression physical therapy that are here and hang on we have about seven we have  bear creek also so they come to our fall conference reign as as vendors to provide information for their services for the kids so that the attendees of the conference we probably have one hundred fifty grain two hundred people t stray free have snacks we have lunch we have had he not speaker and then we have as i said five four or five different sessions and you can choose from those sessions that are most relevant to you to go to  repeated then after that well i don't know if it'll be after the right before we sponsor the flu shot and him yes for whatever the other immunizations are right with the township and with local pharmacy does that that's also in the fall i think they help the park prince and health department sets the date for that but we help coordinate that again that's another demand on our staff that's very great and again another partnership that pierce our city has with other  really critical other community right partners we do a holiday party every winter and that is sponsored by one of our annual sponsors acorn glenn partners with us and brings all of the food we probably have about one hundred people i think at a holiday party and it's predominantly for lower income families that  really may not have family in the area and they may not be going to somebody else's you know right corporate a corporate christmas party or something right so you have a great time there we've we have singers last year i think the boy choir school  events you know it's very handy to have somebody who can help us set up the tables and make it look lovely and get out the silverware and do the floral arrangements and barbara we're almost out so i know so how can people contact you well the princeton senior resource center is in the system she's empat building this is a medicine building which is behind the big george washington monument you can get on our web on our website which is princeton senior dot org and there's a donate button there and donate or come to one of our events there is another way of supporting us and what is the telephone number six zero nine nine two four seven one zero eight and again we're website is princeton senior dot org all right thank you so much this is my much fun and i know you and i hope to see you went to princeton senior center and just