San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
ENCINITAS RECOGNIZES 2019 ‘SENIOR CITIZENS OF YEAR’
Two longtime Encinitas volunteers, Lynne Calkins and Gregory Butler, were chosen for the 2019 Senior Citizen of the Year Award. The annual award recognizes senior role models who have selflessly contributed to the community.
Calkins, a retired ob-gyn nurse practitioner, was honored for years of volunteer work offering her nursing skills throughout the community. She volunteered as an ob-gyn nurse practitioner at St. Leo’s Medical Clinic in Solana Beach. As a registered nurse she also donated her time to give free flu vaccinations to the community at an annual flu shot clinic, courtesy of St. Leo’s, at San Dieguito United Methodist Church. She also has served as the church’s homeless shelter coordinator in a program that is part of the Interfaith Shelter Network in San Diego County.
She started a caregiver support group and runs a “care team” at San Dieguito United Methodist Church to look after members who are homebound, visiting them regularly, offering support and providing meals. Calkins has collected clothing, shoes and household goods for people in Fiji and joined several mission trips offering medical knowledge and care to those in need in Fiji and Nicaragua. Locally, she has served as one of several tutors for the children of a Congolese refugee family in El Cajon.
Calkins is a founding member of Hand to Hand, a women’s giving circle of Coastal Community Foundation in Encinitas, which gives grants to local nonprofits that foster self-sufficiency and positive change in the lives of women and girls.
She is also a founding director of End of Life Choices California, which provides information and support on California’s End of Life Option Act and legal end-of-life options. She has hosted numerous Death Cafes around the county, where community members talk about death, dying and living.
Butler was recognized as an “unsung hero” for years of volunteering, doing everything from home repairs to running errands for fellow seniors and organizing blood drives.
Butler has been giving rides to senior citizens as a volunteer driver for more than 12 years and is known as a handyman, carpenter and electrician, who volunteers his skills to those in need. He built a gazebo to serve as an outdoor gathering place at St. John’s Catholic Church in Encinitas.
He has served as chairman of the “Tootsie Roll Drive,” which raises money to help community members with mental disabilities, and he volunteers as the drive’s treasurer and coach.
For more than 40 years, Butler has coordinated quarterly blood bank drives and serves as a liaison between the San Diego Blood Bank and St. John’s Catholic Church.
Butler and Calkins were honored this month at virtual meetings of the Encinitas Rotary Club, with recognition by Deputy Mayor Kellie Hinze, Encinitas Senior Citizen Commission Chairman Alan Lerchbacker and Rotary President Kerry Witkin and the Encinitas City Council later that day with Encinitas Mayor Catherine Blakespear.
linda.mcintosh@sduniontribune.com