Every morning, like clockwork, City of Malibu recreation supervisor Theresa Odello brews a fresh pot of coffee and sets out cookies, ready to welcome locals for the Malibu Senior Center’s activities of the day.
Malibu’s seniors always like to have coffee available, she said.
“I learned that even making the smallest changes, or doing the smallest things, have an effect, such as always making sure the coffee is there. It’s something small, but if the coffee runs out, then sometimes [seniors] go, ‘Oh, I don’t want to bother her,’” she said. “It’s something small, but it’s something that is reassuring for them.”
Odello has been overseeing the Senior Center for about a year and a half, having returned to Malibu several years after helping open the center in 2003.
She said she always finds ways to keep herself involved in the center. She leads excursions through Malibu and Los Angeles County, such as a recent outing to visit the space shuttle Endeavor at the California Science Center, and has even surprised seniors in the choir at a recent holiday concert by showing off some skills of her own.
“Last year, I played trombone while they were singing ‘Jingle Bells’…and I did a verse on my trombone just to play with the choir,” she said, “And to shock them all, to pull a trombone out of the closet. They’re all like, ‘What is that?’ It doesn’t quite fit with a choir, but for shock factor it’s always fun.”
Odello plays trombone regularly outside of the senior center, as a part of the 100-person Los Angeles Symphonic Winds. In her free time, she is preparing to travel to China with the symphony in December.
“It’s challenging and keeps me working for a goal,” Odello said. “It’s good socialization, but I just love music. I love being involved in music. I enjoy the people in the groups that I play in and it’s just fun.”
Originally from Calabasas, Odello left Malibu in 2005 to pursue a master’s degree in recreation and tourism from Old Dominion University in Virginia. She spent a brief time as a park ranger in Colorado before deciding to come back to Malibu.
“When I was here before, I just had a connection with the community. I already knew lots of the seniors. When I came back, they automatically said ‘Hi,’” Odello said. “It was one of the favorite jobs that I had.”
Aside from brewing a comforting pot of coffee in the morning, Odello is in charge of programming the variety of classes the center offers, working with instructors on upcoming classes, putting together monthly reports and organizing special projects. She said she works with instructors in and around Malibu to figure out which classes are best suited to seniors’ needs.
“We evaluate the classes to see which are the most popular, and we also talk to the seniors on a regular basis [asking], ‘Which classes do you want, if I had an opportunity?’” Odello said. “Many times I have instructors…come to me and say, “I want to teach this class.’…I had someone come to me saying, ‘I want to teach meditation to seniors,’ and now we’re teaching it.”
Odello said popular classes include chair yoga, computer classes and classes taught by Santa Monica College Emeritus instructors, such as modern poetry and creative writing. There is also a 25-person choir.
Odello said providing the opportunity to socialize is an important aspect of her job at the senior center, something she is able to provide that Malibu’s senior citizens club can’t always do.
“Many seniors in the community don’t have anywhere else to go where they can get these resources,” Odello said. “[The senior citizens club] is a great group, but they don’t offer classes and trips and socialization. Besides just aerobics to keep me young, or classes to keep my brain, we’re also big into the socialization, which is why [seniors] come back a lot.”
And Odello enjoys the socialization, and what she can learn from the older generation.
“I’ve learned that everybody has a story, everybody has experience, whatever it may be,” she said. “I feel like I have a lot of fun with those who come here, so I respect them and I respect their stories.”