Christine Dishaw works at the La Pine Activity Center as their bookkeeper, paying the bills and doing banking duties, but she also acts as the Center’s Treasurer, attending board meetings and giving a report each month.
“Four years ago, a good friend wrote to me and asked if I’d like to help out at the La Pine Senior Center, and here I am today,” says Christine. “I really enjoy being here and the people are so wonderful. I usually work about 50 hours a month, sometimes only coming in one day a week, but most weeks I’m here for two days or more.”
Christine had a career as an accountant for many years while living in Los Angeles, until she and her husband moved to Sunriver about seven years ago.
“We used to vacation in Sunriver a lot because it was a central location for our family, so for about 15 years we would come here for various reasons. We have a daughter in Beaverton and one in Atlanta, Georgia, and the kids, grandkids and great-grandkids visit us here.”
“It’s nice working here because although I’m retired, this gives me something to do; I look forward to coming here each week. I like being here because it keeps me engaged in the community. I walk and hike a lot and I’m really looking forward to getting to the Fall River and Paulina areas now that spring is here. We have about 33 miles of bike paths in Sunriver that are safe and great to walk on with my big dog, so I love living there. It can get pretty busy in the summer, and winters can be very quiet, but we live in a really nice neighborhood with friendly people.”
Christine’s husband, Dennis, is a loan broker and at almost 82 is still working from their home, running his own business. He does apartment, industrial and commercial work.
“We have an amazing number of very generous people in this community, very giving,” says Christine. “As bookkeeper, I see the donations that come in. During the COVID pandemic, we had people donating their stimulus checks to us, if you can believe it. We have several extremely kind, generous people in the community who don’t want their name attached to their donations; that’s not why they’re donating. They just see a need here and enjoy helping us out.”
“Our Executive Director, Jamie is an amazing person, with lots of things constantly on her plate, and we’ve had some really terrific people stepping up and helping her out. She’s hard to turn down when asking for volunteers or donations!”
Christine continued, “If somebody shows an interest in some type of event, say knitting, and they have enough people that our interested, we’ll accommodate them here. They’ll have a place to meet. Right now we’re asking if anyone wants to start a book club; as an avid reader, I think that would be great!”