Denise Melroy helps plan activities, connect seniors with resources
Published in the Oct. 29 – Nov. 11, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Staff Report
From left: Senior volunteers Beth Bergstrom, Bernice Lawrence, and Denise Melroy hugging
Jay Torres. Melroy affectionately calls Torres ‘my favorite troublemaker.’ Photo by Marty Cheek
If there might be one word that Denise Melroy thinks describes herself, it is “fun.” The fun-loving program coordinator for Morgan Hill’s Senior Center compares her job to the cruise program coordinator of the TV show “The Love Boat.” Every work day is an adventure, with her dealing with between 75 and 100 senior citizens a day.
“It’s a lot like that,” Melroy said. “I’m coordinating activities. A lot of it is coordinating resources so that people find the correct resources for whatever they need. You name it, and I pretty much do it.”
Occasionally, Melroy organizes field trips to some place fun for the day. Responsible for a bus coach-load of seniors can be a bit wearing for Melroy, she admits. “We went to San Francisco a couple of times and all I did was count bodies,” she said. “It made me nervous. I’m so paranoid, but they are fun.”
The best part of her job at the Senior Center is the seniors themselves. She enjoys listening to their stories and their jokes and getting to know them as unique individuals, she said. Her adventure working with seniors began in January 2008 when Susan Fent with the YMCA, which runs the Centennial Recreation Center and the Senior Center, got Melroy, who is classically trained as a pianist, to lead the sing-alongs at the center.
“I play piano for our church, Morgan Hill Unified Methodist Church, and I also play here, for the seniors in the sing-along,” she said. “They like the old stuff, like the World War II era stuff. Music is really important to me, and it is for them, too.”
Melroy’s time working at the Senior Center comes to an end Oct. 31 when she will “move on” to volunteering activities and other things, she said
Melroy grew up in the Knoxville, Tenn., area and said that influenced her personality with how southerners treat people, something that in turn influences her working with seniors.
“People are very gentle there,” she said. “There are people who say, ‘I’m very direct and I say it like it is.’ We don’t do that. We use manners. And you might think it, but if you were to say it when you were a kid, all heck would break loose. You’d hear it from your parents and grandparents. It’s just that people are very kind there. They have Southern hospitality, it’s the truth.”
The society moved slower in the South too when she was living in Tennessee. “When I was a kid. I mean, we never locked our doors, our neighbors just walked in. If they needed eggs or something there and we weren’t there, they just walked in. It was a fun place to grow up, it had good values.”
Besides classical piano training since the age of five, Melroy also studied math and entered the University of Tennessee to earn a degree in that subject. It was in an ordinary differential equations class that she met her husband Owen Melroy. After they both graduated, they moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where Owen earned his doctorate while Melroy worked at the Research Triangle Institute. The couple moved to Morgan Hill in May 1983 when Owen was offered an IBM job. Melroy put her math degree to work at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park working on a programmed statistical analysis package. The office work could get a little tedious, but Melroy made it fun with the SRI staff by doing out-of-office activities such as making a “B movie” one time.
She quit SRI when she and Owen had two girls, Whitney and Laura. Whitney recently got married and is a graduate students working at Boulder University in behavioral genetics. Laura is a graduate student at San Francisco State working in the environmental science area.
In 2009, Melroy was selected as the Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce’s Woman of the Year. Her reaction when she found out about the honor: “No way! They made a mistake here. There are way more people who volunteer more than I do and have a greater impact on this community.”
But she admits that the honor felt “fabulous” and she had an amazing year. “It was a great experience to be honored like that,” she said.
Helping her gain the honor were the many hours of volunteer work. With kids in high schools, she co-chaired the Live Oak Grad Night event for several years, and also volunteered on the Mako Swim Team when her daughters were involved in that aquatics sports team. She also helps out with the homeless shelter at the Methodist Church and the other outreach programs there. In honor of her mother-in-law, one year she did the Avon Breast Cancer Walk in San Francisco.
Melroy is impressed with how Morgan Hill as a city has evolved since she and her husband moved here and said the community cares about people, which impacts the quality of life here. “Look at what we have here for everyone. Look at the Centennial Recreation Center. Look at the Aquatics Center. Look at the Community Center. Look at what the city has done. They’ve done a lot for the seniors. Working here at the Senior Center has opened my eyes to a lot of things. Working with the public is an interesting experience, but working with the seniors is just a pleasure. They are so grateful and so kind to me.”
