The Pasadena Village. A community of seniors supporting each other as they age in their own homes

As with all organizational websites, the Pasadena Village website offers an important “first impression”. It has not always shown us at our best. Constrained by the limitations of our web platform, Club Express, which also hosts our monthly calendars and member registrations, those of us at Pasadena Village did our best to make the site informative, attractive, and easy to use.

Over the years it was a source of frustration as we tinkered with different “looks”. Website designers and computer programmers are costly, beyond our small budget. Well-meaning volunteers can be helpful, but our limited expertise in websites and social media made it difficult for us to even communicate to outside people what we wanted.

Then, this fall, Village member Paula Rao expressed an interest in the website. She noticed its lack of style consistency, the various colors used, the mix of pages and information. It turns out that Paula, a much loved elementary school teacher at PUSD, also knew something about graphic design. Paula had studied art under famed graphic artist Corita Kent and shared Corita’s interest in exploring color, printmaking, and collage. In later years Paula put her skills to work designing marketing materials and even a website for the Music Circle at Occidental College, which was started by Paula’s husband, Harihar Rao, and musician Ravi Shankar to foster awareness and appreciation of the classical music of India.

“Would you like me to go over the website and see if I can make some changes?” Well – yes!

Still, Paula was not a programmer or website designer. But Village member and artist Karen Bagnard knew someone who could help. Enter Donna Hummer, owner of ConceptuaLine.com, a graphic and website design company. Donna has the expertise to do the coding to make our Club Express system function for us (and do we know what that means?). Donna and Paula formed a team. Says Donna, “Paula has the design vision – I make it happen in the system.”

Members of the Communications Committee, chaired by Dick Myers, took on the task of reviewing, revising, and updating text. Slowly but surely the look and the content of the website began to change. It happened because Village members wanted to give and share their skills and talents. It happened because we knew we needed outside help to get us the necessary expertise. It happened because a lot of people read each page, checked each link, and updated information. That’s how a Village works.

We invite everyone to go onto our website at pasadenavillage.org and browse through our site. We hope it is friendly and welcoming, full of useful information and easy to use. Of course it’s not done yet, it is still a work in progress. But then aren’t we all works in progress? And isn’t it wonderful that we are?

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