| | Published November 12th, 2008
| Outward Bound: Music and Motoring with the Lamorinda Spirit Van
| | By Mei Sun Li, Lafayette Senior Services |  | | Rosalee Biasatti Photo provided
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One afternoon about twent five years ago, Orinda's Rosalee Biasatti was told she had MS, Multiple Sclerosis. Rosalee was stunned but adhered to her plans that night for a fun evening with a friend. Soon thereafter, and pre-internet, she found herself immersed in the local library, discovering everything one could learn about this debilitating and difficult disease.
Today, Rosalee Biasatti is one of the Lamorinda Spirit Van's most ardent supporters. The paratransit service, which has a wheelchair lift, takes passengers to the local Walnut Creek Senior Center lunch program, gets them to medical appointments, and to shopping and banking centers. She says, "The Spirit Van is wonderful especially because of the people I've met who come from so many different backgrounds and careers. Also I get out of the house and this is particularly important for me since I am so confined in my wheelchair. I know that the social interaction is good for my brain."
Rosalee is used to using her brain. Rosalee today, a retired teacher into her seventies, still conveys a radiance and assurance that her teenage students must have found comforting. She taught just about everything in the Hayward school system - geography, civics, phys ed, dance - and loved it.
Rosalee lives next door to one of her three grown sons in Orinda and enjoys all of her five grandchildren. She says that this is the time in her life for "soul growth" and routinely allocates periods of the day for prayers, meditation, and reading some of the important metaphysical writers such as Deepak Chopra.
Help Lafayette Senior Services (LSS) to help folks like Rosalee Biasatti stay outward bound. The Lamorinda Spirit Van program will be the recipient of all funds raised at the Lafayette Senior Services annual holiday concert event on Friday December 12th 1:30 - 3:00 PM at the Lafayette Community Center, 500 Saint Mary's Road in Lafayette. Violist Jennifer Carne along with Mark Shaw, fiddler extraordinaire, will present a musical concert program of holiday, bluegrass, and folk tunes. Light refreshments will be served. Tickets are only $5 and discounts available for senior resident groups. Call Lafayette Senior Services at 284-5050 to let them know you will attend this festive and important holiday event.
Raffle prizes have been donated by the following groups for which LSS is most grateful:
- Town Hall Theater Company
- Gold Coast Chamber Players
- Stratford at Countrywood
- Eldercare Services
- Amarin Thai Cuisine Restaurant
- Mt. Diablo Nursery and Garden
- Powell's Sweet Shoppe
- Howard and Mary Fuchs
- Ruth and David McCahan
- Lafayette Recreation Center
LSS would also like to extend its thanks to the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce and Companion Care of Lafayette for their enduring support.
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Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA