Three days later, she received a phone call from her real estate agent: “I sold your house for the asking price.”

Good referrals make great sales

Kleiner had worked at Seabrook, an Erickson Living community in Tinton Falls, N.J., for seven years. “I saw what a great place it is from the inside, so it was an easy decision for me to move there,” she says.

Before choosing a real estate agent, she met with Seabrook’s Retirement Counselor Ruth Phillips.

Phillips presented Kleiner with a list of Seabrook-recommended real estate professionals and movers. From that list, Kleiner chose her agent, who sold Kleiner’s house for the asking price in just three days.

Additionally, Phillips recommended a family-owned-and-operated moving company that came in handy when Kleiner moved out of her townhouse and into her “perfect” one-bedroom-with-den sixth-floor apartment home overlooking the community gardens.

“I couldn’t be happier,” Kleiner says.

Move On Us

In addition to having a great moving experience, Kleiner received almost $2,000 of her moving expenses back as a reward for using moving professionals recommended by Seabrook.

The program, called “Move On Us,” is an incentive to help ease the transition. “It’s worked very nicely,” says Angela Garofolo, moving consultant for Seabrook.

Not only has the program helped future Seabrook neighbors sell their houses and move, but it also ensures that the whole process is coordinated. “The real estate agent is always in contact with me, giving me updates on what is needed,” Garofolo says. “We talk in detail about the house, price, open houses, Internet promotions…They keep me posted on everything.”

Additionally, Garofolo talks to the future Seabrook resident at least once a week. “We do as much as we can to help the house seller,” she says.

Settling in

Now that Kleiner has settled into her new apartment home, she says she’s living the enviable Erickson lifestyle she always witnessed as a staff member.

“I’ve been in two plays, I take the memory course offered by Erickson Advantage (insurance program), I go to the fitness center three times a week, and I attended the menu-tasting panel when it was time to change the menu in our restaurants,” she says.

Most importantly, though, she enjoys spending time with her six-year-old granddaughter. “She loves to go to the pool, walk around the ponds, and visit people in the dining room,” Kleiner says. “She loves it here as much as I do.”

Jerry Winnick proudly displays the first-place ribbon he won for his wire-and-plaster sculpture. He creates art in his apartment home at Cedar Crest. (Photo courtesy of Jerry Winnick)

When Jerry Winnick saw his young son’s arm wrapped in a cast, he saw an opportunity for art.

A young Jerry Winnick places plaster of paris around a sculpted figurine. “First,” he says, “I make an illustration in my mind of what I want to create.” (Photo courtesy of Jerry Winnick)

Winnick, who lives at Cedar Crest, an Erickson Living community in Pompton Plains, N.J., creates sculptures from plaster of paris, wrapped around wire clothes hangers and tinfoil.

Winnick says anyone can create these sculptures in any size space, including their Cedar Crest apartment home. In fact, he recently demonstrated how to make the sculptures on Cedar Crest’s in-house TV channel.

Winnick makes shapes that range from houses to people to abstract figures.

“First, I make an illustration in my mind of what I want to create,” he explains. Then he finds a block of wood for the base of his sculpture before he begins bending and shaping wire clothes hangers into a “stick” figure.

Once he has his base shape, he wraps tinfoil around the wire as filler to thicken and form a more detailed sculpture. “I squeeze it and shape it because it’s pliable—even more pliable than clay,” he says.

Next, he wraps the sculpture with plaster of paris and allows it to dry for two to three days.

Finally, he spray paints the sculpture black (as a base coat). While it is still wet, he sprays silver, gold, or dark green paint to create a metallic effect.

“It looks like metal, yet it’s gauze,” he says in amazement of his own creation. “Now, it’s an art form.”

From service to spray paint

While he was in the Navy-Marine Corps, Winnick’s artistic talents began to bud. “I would do a cartoon or calligraphy while I was in the service,” he says. “I always kept my hands in artwork.”

When he got out of the service, he attended New York University to become a commercial artist and learned graphic design and other artistic skills. Eventually, though, he took a job in the transportation industry, and art became a hobby.

Now that he lives at Cedar Crest, where his home maintenance, cooking, and other chores are taken care of, Winnick has time to pick up his artistic endeavors again.

“It’s been a hobby that grew,” he says.

Cedar Crest’s Mameloshen Language Club reads in Yiddish, pictured during an August 3 meeting. (Photo by Amy Helmer)

“When Evelyn [Thau] and I started it, we didn’t want it to be a scholarly program; we literally wanted it to be fun,” Metz says. As program director of the club, Metz incorporates all forms of Yiddish humor into its activities, while Thau manages the logistics.

A Hamish place

At their first meeting more than one year ago in a small classroom, Metz and Thau presented Yiddish tales to a tiny group. But by the second meeting, “the turnout rocked us,” Thau says. “The second meeting had over 80 people.”

They quickly outgrew the classroom and moved to Seabrook’s Atrium, a large room available for catering and events.

“We’re so proud of the fact that our community is anxious to participate and be a part of the Yiddish community here at Seabrook,” Thau says, adding that several non-Jews participate as well.

“It’s hamish [‘homey’ or ‘cozy’ in Yiddish]—it’s an atmosphere in which people enjoy coming together,” she says.

Part of community, life

Thau, who moved to Seabrook from Neponsit, N.Y., almost four years ago, belonged to the temple there and was active in the Jewish community. “It was easy to become active in the Jewish community here at Seabrook,” she says, adding that she’s more active now than she ever was during the 40 years she lived in her house.

“When I heard there was a Yiddish Club, I was even more excited to move here,” Thau says.

By the time she moved, the club had disbanded, but she soon met Metz, and they started planning a revival. Now, they have the largest club at Seabrook.

Metz grew up in the Bronx, speaking Yiddish at home with her parents, who owned a fruit and vegetable market. The youngest of four by ten years, Metz often accompanied her parents to the Yiddish theater “so I wouldn’t bother my siblings,” she says.

There, “I accumulated the language, the music, and the humor,” which she presents to the club at Seabrook.

Recently, Herb Gissen joined the crew, playing his ukulele and singing Yiddish songs. “Sometimes he brings sheet music, and everybody follows and sings along,” says Thau.

‘Flexible language’

At Seabrook’s sister community, Cedar Crest in Pompton Plains, N.J., Millie Eisenberg and her neighbors discuss topics like cooking, politics, and entertainment in the Yiddish language. Meeting twice a month, the group is known as the Mameloshen Language Club.

Mameloshen is the Yiddish word for “mother tongue,” and it is most often used to refer to the Yiddish language itself.

“The point being that we don’t want to forget the language,” Eisenberg says. “A lot of us grew up speaking it in our homes, and it is part of our heritage and our memories.

Eisenberg, who studied Yiddish as a child growing up on Long Island, says she enjoys the language and will frequently toss Yiddish words into everyday conversation, words as common as bagel, lox, and mazeltov.

“It’s a flexible language that can have varying meanings depending on your inflection,” she says of why she likes it.

The Mameloshen Language Club meets on the first and third Tuesdays of the month in the music room of the Woodland Commons Clubhouse at Cedar Crest.

But when they found the perfect apartment home at Cedar Crest, an Erickson Living community in Pompton Plains, in February—just before the third blizzard of the season—“we just couldn’t turn it down,” Mrs. Craine says.

Strong-willed and hopeful, they called Cedar Crest’s Personal Moving Consultant Margaret Semezko, who helped them downsize and stage their house and put it on the market using a Prudential real estate agent she recommended.

Despite the blizzard, their house had two offers within five days.

“I was expecting three to five months, but it sold so quickly,” Mrs. Craine says. “The house showed very nicely, partly because of Margaret’s help.”

Professional benefits

“I started working with Marilyn when she was on the priority list,” Semezko says of the waiting list people join to reserve their place in line for an apartment home at Cedar Crest. “I gave her some staging suggestions that she followed through on, and that really helped sell their home.”

For example, Mrs. Craine says, Semezko suggested the Craines move a large couch in their living room that detracted from the fireplace and stained glass window.

She also moved some furniture from their dining room to other rooms of the house to simplify the look and showcase key areas.

Downsizing, staging, and moving assistance

“After living in a house for 43 years, it was hard to get rid of things, but Margaret gave us good guidance,” Mrs. Craine says. “She made suggestions on how to get rid of certain items and what to keep.”

The Craines used Craigslist to sell furniture not being taken by family members. They sold other items at neighborhood garage and yard sales, and they kept some pieces to help stage the house.

Downsizing and staging the home helped open the house to people who visited in person and online. “The real estate agent took beautiful pictures to show our house on the Internet,” Mrs. Craine says.

Once their house sold, the Craines hired a moving company (also recommended by Semezko) and moved into their Cedar Crest apartment home on May 12. “It worked out perfectly,” Mrs. Craine says.

And for using professionals recommended by Semezko—those who are on Cedar Crest’s preferred vendors list—the Craines qualified for a reimbursement of up to $3,000 of their moving costs.

‘Getting established’

Mr. and Mrs. Craine are still getting settled, but it hasn’t taken them long to feel at home.

“I love it,” Mrs. Craine says. “We’re still getting established, but what a difference in the whole atmosphere at Cedar Crest versus any other retirement community we visited.”

Mrs. Craine says they have already tried the cardio exercise program in the community’s fitness center, bingo (“which we won,” she adds), and the newcomer orientation.

“There are so many fantastic things here,” she says. “One of the nice things about Cedar Crest is that every time you dine, you meet new people. You can’t be lonely here.”

For all that you’ve been through, I think it made you who you are today,” 10-year-old Maya wrote to her pen pal, Patricia Shiels.

Pen pals Pat Shiels and 10-year-old Maya meet for the first time at Cedar Crest, where Shiels lives. They had been writing letters for six months. (Photo by Erica Koizim)

“She’s a very profound, sweet girl,” says Shiels, who lives at Cedar Crest. “The first thing she asked me was if she could call me ‘Pat.’”

Shiels volunteered to become a pen pal to Maya’s fourth grade class at Stoneybrook Elementary School in Kinnelon, N.J.

Erica Koizim, Cedar Crest’s community resources manager who arranged the exchange, collects letters from residents and delivers them to the school. She started the program last year with 14 Cedar Crest neighbors participating; this year, 22 people who live at the community took part.

“I heard of another Erickson community doing the pen pal program…and thought that we would have many residents interested in participating in something like this,” Koizim says. “Mrs. Mary Kay Catalano, one of the fourth-grade teachers [at Stoneybrook Elementary], loved the idea. I arranged a meeting for interested residents to sign up to be a pen pal.”

Koizim distributes basic guidelines, such as “don’t exchange gifts” and “try to be neutral when talking about holidays.” The two groups exchange letters every two weeks for six months, and Koizim says some pen pals continue writing after the program ends.

“The residents seem to love participating in this program,” Koizim says. “Many of them are retired teachers, and it brings them back to the days that they spent countless hours with young people. For some of them, it is simply the joy of writing a letter, a lost art. For others, they treat their pen pals like surrogate grandchildren. It is wonderful that we have the opportunity for this type of intergenerational activity.”

Lasting friendship

For Shiels and Maya, their friendship developed into one that both will cherish forever.

“We talked about everything,” Shiels says. “We told each other about our families, and we had discussions about things that had happened to us in our lives. I think she enjoyed writing to me.”

Shiels, a former paralegal, loves to write now that she’s retired. She writes for Mountain Matters, a monthly periodical produced by fellow Cedar Crest neighbors. But mostly, she says, she writes simple things. “When I think of something to say, I sit down and I write about it,” she explains, citing a short essay she wrote the morning of this interview called “What is a smile.”

Ageless classroom

Toward the end of the six-month letter exchange, the Cedar Crest pen pals invited their fourth-grade friends to lunch at one of the community’s restaurants. Finally, Shiels and Maya met the person on the other side of the pen. And though they were scheduled to stop communicating through the school’s program, they traded addresses and plan to continue to write.

Topics for writing to a pen pal

If you like the idea of being a pen pal but can’t think of anything to write about, here are some suggestions:

• What is your favorite color or type of music? Describe how it makes you feel.
• What are your favorite holidays and traditions? Tell a story about a recent holiday experience.
• What is your typical day? Describe it using sensory details and vivid imagery.
• What is your favorite book?
• Summarize it in your own words, then explain why you like it.
• What are your favorite foods? Write about eating those foods and how they make you feel.
• What are your favorite memories created with your family? Explain them using anecdotes.

Seabrook’s Josephine Gross, armed with tools to help clean up Bradley Beach. (Photo by Travis Tanay)

Residents and staff from Seabrook volunteer twice a year to help with the beach cleanup, an effort by Clean Ocean Action not only to clean littered beaches but also to collect data and identify sources of pollution.

Seabrook resident Mary Lukas has participated twice and enjoys the camaraderie and fresh air. “I think we do a very good deed to clean up the beach,” she says. “It’s fun because there’s a group of us, and we pair up so one keeps a record of what we find and the other picks up trash and recyclables.”

Clean Ocean Action provides trash bags, water, and snacks for the volunteers, along with a list of recyclables. Ann Marie Matthews, volunteer program coordinator for Seabrook, organizes volunteers from the community. “It’s another example of our part in the community at large,” Matthews says. “Everyone always feels so good spending the morning cleaning up the beach; it’s beautiful.”

“We enjoy the beaches, and we like to see them clean,” agrees Ruth Gay, who lives at Seabrook and participated in the latest cleanup with 10 neighbors and 12 Seabrook staff members. “It’s best for all of us—people, animals, everyone—to clean the beaches.”

Both Gay and Lukas have the same sentiment: “It’s very worthwhile.”

The next beach cleanup will be in October.

May Yeh, Shirley Sliker, Ruth Gay, Jane Finton, and Art Wenzel load donated items. Finton’s grandson is in Iraq. (Photo by Tony Ciavolella)

Residents donated approximately 1,000 items—including snacks, sunscreen, toiletries, and other comforts of home—to American Recreational Military Services (A.R.M.S.), a nonprofit organization that ships the items to military men and women from New Jersey.

Jane Finton, who participated in the collection effort, lives at Seabrook and has a grandson currently serving in Iraq.

“I also had a son who served in the Army, so I can relate to those who have family members in the armed forces,” she says. “I send boxes to my grandson and wanted to help some of the other troops as well. I think it’s a great idea because they need something to give them some happiness. I’m happy to be able to help, and I’ll be even happier when we don’t have to do this anymore at all.”

Voracious volunteers

For the past few years, Seabrook residents have donated supplies to various organizations that ship these useful items to those serving in the military.

“After past successful drives, we wanted to continue to help here at Seabrook and do whatever we can to support the men and women who are sacrificing so much overseas,” says Seabrook’s Executive Director Art Sparks. “The small items that are being donated are ones that we often take for granted in our daily lives, but they may provide some comfort for our troops.”

The troop collection drive is one of several volunteer efforts in which the community is involved. Residents regularly support the FoodBank of Monmouth and Ocean Counties, the United Way, Bradley Food Pantry, Interfaith Neighbors, the United Methodist Church of Asbury Park, Toys for Tots, and the Arc of Monmouth County.

A.R.M.S. was founded in 2003 by a group of grassroots volunteers who wanted to give something back to the military and their families. In a matter of months, the small organization grew from just a handful to more than 325 volunteers throughout the tri-state area. Today A.R.M.S. continues to serve the local armories. The nonprofit organization supports the area unit Family Readiness Groups and provides direct assistance to family members in need. In addition, A.R.M.S. has been working with the local military bases to address quality of life issues for soldiers and their families.

Farmers and homeowners alike use pesticides to deter disease-causing pests like cockroaches, mosquitoes, microbes, and rodents. However, by their nature, pesticides pose risk to humans, animals, and the environment.

Recently, the garden club at Seabrook, a retirement community in Tinton Falls, N.J., reestablished its bi-laws to discourage gardeners from using pesticides. As an alternative, gardeners may use organic methods, such as insecticidal soap, garlic, mint, and other homemade remedies, among some store-bought ones.

“We ask members to maintain their garden and keep it weed-free using organic methods,” says Bea Gardella, garden club president at Seabrook.

A Master Gardener, Gardella also helped start the community gardens at the historic Crawford House in Tinton Falls. She volunteers at the Brookdale Community College greenhouse and uses Gardens Alive!, a line of environmentally responsible products with ingredients like bacteria and fungi that enrich soil naturally.

Growing trend

Nearby in Belmar, 22 family units manage the Magical Garden, a 750-square-foot space located on the corner of 15th and E Streets that began in 2000.

“We are completely organic,” says chair of the community garden Carol Davies, whose mother lives at Seabrook. “We start with organic seeds, use organic starting mix, and add organic fertilizer like fish meal. We mend our soil with manure, leaves, and compost to keep it in good shape.”

If bugs happen to infest plants, gardeners spray them with water, remove them by hand, or pull up and dispose of the infested plants.

Why organic or pesticide-free?

In many community gardens, space is connected—Seabrook has seventy 10-foot by 10-foot squares—which means chemicals used in one garden quickly travel to others and into the surrounding environment.

Like Seabrook gardeners, Belmar Magical Garden members chose to go organic because “we’re trying to be good stewards. All those chemicals go into our waterways. Belmar is close to the ocean and Lake Como, and we can see the effects,” Davies says, citing a recent fish kill due to a local resident dumping swimming pool water into Lake Como. “We are committed to doing things that have the least effect on our environment.”

In addition to protecting the environment, people who choose to minimize or eliminate pesticides may be protecting themselves.

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, pesticides and herbicides can cause health problems, including nerve damage and cancer, over a long period of time.

Because these effects depend on how toxic the pesticide is and how much of it is consumed, federal and state governments assess and regulate pesticide toxicity and use to ensure they don’t pose “unreasonable risk” to humans, animals, and the environment. However, officials warn that pesticides should be your last defense against pests and to always use products as directed.

The National Pesticide Information Center (npic.orst.edu) provides “objective, science-based information about pesticides and pesticide-related topics to enable people to make informed decisions about pesticides and their use.”

Edith Lovette entertains with soft piano music during the high tea at Seabrook. (Photos by Marie Cook)

Eckle has hosted elaborate afternoon teas since June 2008, when she and her husband, Dr. Leonard Eckle, lived in Springfield, N.J. For the first one, she invited her friends and neighbors to a beautifully decorated room at Kean University in Union, N.J.

Now she is continuing the tradition after moving to Seabrook in Tinton Falls, N.J., where she hosted her first high tea for new neighbors on May 3, 2010.

The invitation reads,

Dear Friends:

Please plan to arrive at the Atrium [in Seabrook’s Town Square Clubhouse] at 12:30 p.m.

I am requesting that the ladies wear hats/bonnets to the tea. I have hats for all of you! After selecting our hats, we will proceed to the dining room.

I am happy to welcome all of you as my guests and look forward to a very enjoyable afternoon together.

An enjoyable afternoon it was, indeed.

Anna Sodano and Sopia Rabinvick show off their decorated bonnets.

Treat for taste buds

From assorted tea sandwiches to scones with Devonshire cream and lemon curd to petit fours and miniature chocolate éclairs, the high tea was a treat for the taste buds. Tea varieties included Lemon Zinger, English Breakfast, and Earl Grey.

“I didn’t realize it, but Seabrook has very pretty tea cups and tiered trays for the finger foods,” Eckle says. “It was like a true English tea.”

Twenty-six people attended the high tea, including seven men. They sat at two round tables of seven and two of six.

Catering staff decorated tables with bright white tablecloths and yellow napkins. Each place setting donned a silver gift bag filled with Jordan almonds and a tiny beaded purse for ladies or a scratch-off lottery ticket for men.

“We had big hats decorated with flowers, and Edith Lovette played piano,” says Pat Hann, a Seabrook neighbor who attended the event. “I just love to hear Edith play.”

Even men join in the fun. Harold Lenz and Leonard Eckle wear decorated ball and sailor's caps.

All the women wore bonnets decorated with silk flowers; the men wore decorated baseball caps. “They were such sports!” Eckle says, delighted. She now stores the hats in hat boxes in her and her husband’s one-bedroom Seabrook apartment home.

It takes a Village

Eckle says she didn’t put on this elaborate affair alone. Help came from her neighbors.

“Trudi Lenz decorated all the hats,” Eckle explains. “She’s lived here for eight or nine years and is a talented artist, painting landscapes and flowers with watercolor or acrylic paints, so decorating the hats was right up her alley. She made all the place cards too.”

Eckle also praises Roman Rubas, from Seabrook’s information technology department, who helped her design the invitations, as well as Chef Ira Levine and Catering Manager Beverly Smack. “The staff did a wonderful job, and the food, I must say,” proclaims Eckle, “was outrageous.”

While thanking Seabrook staff for helping her host the high tea, Eckle gives much credit to her husband, a retired optometrist, “for putting up with all these looney tunes,” she says.

Married for 57 years, the two moved to Seabrook from Springfield after selling their house in just one week last September.

They brought their cat, Meetsa, and enjoy volunteering, traveling, attending lectures, and other activities at Seabrook.

Sporting his handmade dinosaur bolo tie, Jim Johnson displays his rock and gem collection in his Cedar Crest apartment home. (Photo by Erica Koizim)

Founded and led by Jim Johnson, who lives at the Pompton Plains retirement community, CC RAGS meets once a month from September through May to discuss geology, minerals, and semiprecious gems.

Year-round, the group takes bus trips to local rock quarries, museums, and mines like the zeolite mines in Paterson, N.J. During the society’s off months, some members travel in search of interesting stones or locations where they can see their studies in real life.

Art to industry

“Ladies like the jewelry; men are into mining,” Johnson says of the 49 group members.

For each meeting, Johnson chooses a topic to discuss, from the classification system for earthquakes to the history of lapidary (the art of cutting gems that dates back to the ancient Egyptians).

Additionally, he brings specimens from his own rock collection to meetings. He has a piece of petrified wood, a fossilized dinosaur bone, and various colors of agate or quartz, among others.

Mining for knowledge

A former businessman from Dover, N.J., Johnson was first introduced to geology in college. “I took geology courses to fulfill my science credits, and I found it so interesting,” he says.

Later, he started the Dover Rock and Gem Society and also adopted the hobbies of lapidary and silversmithing. He incorporated his hobbies with traveling across the globe, from Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico to Sweden, Norway, Estonia, and Poland, collecting stones and making jewelry.

“My wife, Verna, has always liked my hobby,” he laughs. “I make all kinds of jewelry for holidays and birthdays.”

One of his favorite aspects of lapidary and silversmithing is studying the techniques of different Native American tribes. For example, he says, the Zuni tribes use small beadwork to create mosaics of color and pattern, while the Navajos use turquoise stone and silver.

Four agreements

Johnson tells a story of Native American beliefs in relation to jewelry design: “They believe four things are important in life. If one of the four doesn’t appear, there would be no life on Earth.”

In most Native American jewelry, a color or stone symbolizes one of these four key elements:

Mother of pearl represents clean water.

Turquoise represents blue sky and clean air.

Red rock or horn coral represents earth and land.

Black represents the sun and the black spots you see when you look at the sun.

“These are some of the things that I teach,” says Johnson of how his knowledge fits in with CC RAGS. “I don’t think most people would learn this on their own.”

Jewelry 101

CC RAGS founder Jim Johnson teaches members what to look for when shopping for handmade jewelry and the dos and don’ts of caring for it.

Do be knowledgeable of appropriate color, price, and natural stone characteristics. For example, “If something is too perfect, be wary. If lapis stone is all blue with no metallic specks, it’s most likely dyed,” he says. Likewise, if the price of jewelry is significantly less than what you expect, you should question its authenticity.

Don’t do dishes while wearing turquoise or opal. “Opal is 90% water and has layers that will crack if placed in extreme hot or cold,” Johnson says.

Do clean your semiprecious gemstones with a soft cloth moistened with warm water instead of soaking them in soap to retain their natural vibrance.

Don’t wear pearls or gemstones in the shower.

Do try to clean pearls after every use, as natural oils, hair products, and perfumes can diminish their natural luster.