Gift People: Living on Purpose - June Fleming

“I like to live my life purposefully,” says June Fleming, who at 74 is a poster child for healthy and engaged living and who nonchalantly describes her rigorous snowcamping and hiking trips. For 15 years she has been reading weekly to residents at two local care facilities, as a volunteer for the library’s Visiting Voices program. She has always loved libraries, calling them “the great equalizers” and she has a gift for reading aloud, noting that her husband and children always loved to hear her read. June has spent a lifetime cultivating relationships with elders through conversation, letters and visits and her work with Visiting Voices has deepened her respect for the wisdom of elders. June describes wisdom as the ability to adapt to change and not be diminished by loss, illness and death.  Hear a short recording of one of her reading sessions. June is an author, too: check out copies of June’s books, The Well-fed Backpacker and Staying Found: The Complete Map and Compass Handbook. Gift People is a program of  recorded conversations with civically engaged older adults, sponsored by Library Outreach Services, Life by Design NW and the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by Oregon State Library.