Mat-Su Senior Services members pose in various costumes and settings for their 2015 calendar. The calendar projects raise money for the center, as well as provide creative, recreational activities.
Ninilchik Senior Center's calendar is available for purchase. The center's members developed ideas and modeled for photos.
Ninilchik Senior Center members brainstormed themes for their 2015 Fishing Follies calendar, with ice fishing being the January photo.
Betty Matthews, left and Vi Norbo strain to hold onto Rocket while posing for a photo for the Mat-Su Senior Services 2015 calendar. The picture appears with the month of January in the calendar.
Picking out a new calendar is one of the best treats of the New Year. It doesn't matter whether it's a gift for family or friends or one to use yourself.
Some people have calendars in every room. Some have a wall calendar, a pocket calendar and a desk calendar. There may be a picture and a page for every month; every week or every day. And some Alaska seniors are creating their own calendars.
Both Mat-Su Senior Services in Palmer and the Ninilchik Senior Services Center are using their own calendars for 2015 as a fundraising project. In both instances, staff members say they were inspired by the movie "Calendar Girls," the story of a group of senior women in Britain who needed to raise money to help someone in their community. The project was both clever and successful; it just seemed like something that would work locally as well.
This is the third calendar by the Mat-Su group and Development Manager Donna Harding says, "We have really tried to show our seniors as a very lively, active and fun group because they are."
Kathryn Kennedy, the Ninilchik center director, reports a very similar experience with their "Fishing Follies" calendar. Once they settled on the fishing theme, then different people came up with suggestions they thought would be funny, such as using everyone wearing fur coats or a joke about women cleaning the tackle boxes instead of men.
Both organizations took the attitude that they were not going to be afraid to show the world that aging can still be beautiful and fun; both groups will likely have a few calendars remaining for sale in December.
The most important part of the process was starting early and planning ahead, both because weather changes may create delays in photo shoots and because they wanted to have a picture that would be appropriate for each month.
And then there's the lead time necessary to produce the layout and to give the printer enough time to produce them.
A good finished product needs a good idea; models who are willing to go along with the fun; and the technical work preparing it to go to the printer. Local groups and businesses have been very helpful in selling the calendars, too.
• http://www.mat-suseniorservices.com, 907-745-5454
• http://www.ninilchikseniors.org, 907-567-3988
