Three days a week, Jennine Stephan can be found in the Camp Verde Senior Center Thrift Shop.
It’s below the main level of the center that sits off of Maryvale Drive. It’s a fairly large space filled with clothing, electronics, old record albums, books and countless other knickknacks ranging from a DVD about dog training to an archery bow.
Last Wednesday, Stephan was helping other volunteers unload and sort items that filled the back of van that had stopped by to donate.
“We’re busy,” Stephan said. “And we’re usually busy all at once.”
There are some things the thrift store sometimes doesn’t accept.
Stephan directed one woman to take her typewriter to a local antiques store.
“No one really uses those anymore,” Stephan said.
Still, Stephan said she personally doesn’t use a computer or email.
While Stephan acknowledges the convenience, she definitely thinks there are pros and cons.
“You lose a sense of actually communicating with people,” Stephan said.
Stephan has been volunteering at the senior center for more than a decade. She’s also worked over the years helping to set up blood drives.
She comes down from her home in Lake Montezuma where she likes it just fine, as opposed to the idea of living in Camp Verde.
“It can be a little too close in Camp Verde,” Stephan laughs. “Sometimes there are things you don’t want to hear but you hear them anyway.”
That being said, Stephan likes working and socializing at the Camp Verde Senior Center.
“I like all the people I meet here,” Stephan said
Stephan said she particularly likes playing cards, canasta specifically.
“I play with other old folks like me, so it’s fun,” Stephan said.
Stephan has been a resident of the Verde Valley since 1987; she and her husband found a place to start building a house for their retirement in 1982.
The couple had heard about the area being a nice place to live from some friends who were already here.
It took a little getting used to life in the Verde Valley, compared to her life in Los Angeles, where she lived since 1957 in the Manhattan Beach area.
While she misses being near the ocean, Stephan said it didn’t take long to fit in here in this part of the desert.
Stephan retired from a career in the aerospace industry, working as a group leader with TRW, a company that helped develop things like missiles and satellites among various other things.
“It was hard work, but it was fun,” Stephan said.
Stephan said she got the job because her husband, Joe, worked in the industry and had moved to the Los Angeles area from Chicago.
The two actually met in Germany and soon they made a life for themselves together back in the states.
