By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle
A surprise retirement party was recently held for long-time Osoyoos flea market volunteer, 91-year old Nancy Scheuren.
Invited to what she thought was a simple lunch with a couple of her friends, she was surprised to discover that in reality, nearly 20 of her co-volunteers had gathered to celebrate her retirement after nearly 20 years working at the Osoyoos Community Living Flea Market.
“This is the biggest surprise of my life,” she laughs, as she sits in the middle of a long table at the Osoyoos Golf Club surrounded by friends and co-workers from the flea market.
While clearly as sharp as ever, Scheuren said she decided to retire because she feared she would be more of a hindrance than a help because of concerns around carrying and lifting items, combined with difficulty bending down.
Richard Little, Executive Director of the Southern Okanagan Association for Integrated Community Living (SOAICL), which runs the flea market, said the sprightly 91-year old joined as a volunteer in the early years of the flea market, which started in 2002.
“She is obviously a senior volunteer at this stage, and it’s amazing to go through all those years, almost 19 and a half years she has been with us, and that’s what we’re celebrating.” He added that she’s part of an “incredibly dedicated group of people, absolutely awesome volunteers.”
Scheuren and her husband came to Osoyoos not so much as part of the grand plan, but rather at the behest of their grandchildren. After living in Banff, the couple spent nearly 20 years in Castlegar before returning to Banff.
Sometime after, one of the couple’s sons and family moved to Osoyoos to start up a chiropractic practice and it was then that the law was laid down by the grandkids. “I’m not moving if Oma and Opa aren’t moving,” was their hard and fast line. “And here we are,” she laughs.
“I enjoyed it, we had a great group of workers, everybody was friendly with everybody, no bosses bossing, we all worked as a team,” recollects Nancy Scheuren on her years at the flea market.
Don Urquhart photo
Line dancing caught her fancy shortly after arriving, and she would also attend the Therapeutic Activation Programs for Seniors (TAPS) run by Desert Sun Counselling and Resource Centre. “I went four days a week, it’s a wonderful program,” she says, adding that the participants became “like sisters”.
She also joined the flea market, which at the time was quite a smaller operation, she says. “I enjoyed it, we had a great group of workers, everybody was friendly with everybody, no bosses bossing, we all worked as a team.” Another benefit is that as she and her friends got older, it became a place where they would all see each other, as a hip replacement gradually put an end to line dancing for her.
So now that she has more free time on her hands, how will she fill her days? “I never have free time, I have a modern life!” she says unequivocally.
“Every day is a blessing, you get up and look outside . . . take a gulp of fresh air, listen to the birds, see the trees and thank God for putting you in such a great place. I’m happy all the time – only you can make yourself happy, and only you can make yourself miserable. So that’s me, she says, adding that she’s not a “lonely person”.
She does acknowledge that she’s “really going to miss the volunteering.” But she also admits that she’s been forcing herself to be lazy, and guess what? She enjoys it, she shares with a laugh.
She also says she’s lucky as she has two sons and a grandson that can take her wherever she wants to go, but she finds it hard, for example, to ask them to take her to a friend’s for coffee and then come back and get her. No doubt they would have something to say about that.
Before I let her go to enjoy her lunch, I asked her and Little about the current state of volunteering, seeing as how it appears to be increasingly difficult to replace the volunteers in town that are “ageing out” and retiring just as she is.
Little notes that the organization has been “very, very fortunate that way,” saying the volunteers not only derive happiness in giving back to the community, but develop deep camaraderie and friendships.” Altogether, there are around 42 volunteers working at the flea market.
The question leads Scheuren to some more general, generational observations. “They have too much,” she opines. “Our generation, the ‘end of the war generation’, we were brought up to appreciate what we had, and therefore we want our children to have more than we had.
“If you think of the younger generation, at 16 they all have a car – we were lucky to have a bicycle,” she says. “I think the kids are not brought up to be appreciative of a giving way – you give of yourself.
“The young people today, for me, are a ‘me generation’. They’re brought up that way for right or wrong,” she says, adding that her generation grew up living a “free life”. By that, she means there were fewer rules and fewer concerns about things as compared to the many pressures on kids today. And the smartphones are “the worst,” she says with clear disdain.
“There’s nothing wrong with the generation today, there’s no bad kids or no good kids, it’s just the situation kids find themselves in – they’re not free anymore. You can’t just take a bike and go somewhere and come back later. Kids were free to learn from mistakes, but now we drive them to school,” she observes.
“Computers are like part of their brain,” she adds, “it’s just a different way of life, strange to me but to them it’s normal.”
The Southern Okanagan Association for Integrated Community Living supports those with developmental disabilities, and also, in some circumstances, children with special needs.
Little says the organization used to run programs themselves, but now it’s just about running social enterprises, like Double O Bikes and Sports (which operates in Osoyoos and Oliver) and is owned and operated by the SOAICL. Any of the profits generated from their social enterprises, including the flea market, go to support the organization’s mission, he adds.
