As the advisory committee for older adults at the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center bandied about potential program ideas, Nancy Castle would vigorously scribble things down.
And by the next time the committee met, she had many of those suggestions in the works.
Castle, who worked as director of senior programs at the BRJCC for the past 15 years, died Sunday, Oct. 30 in Oakland. She was 66.
Nancy Bernstein was born on March 5, 1939 in Brooklyn. Her family was very literary-minded, and at Brooklyn College she majored in English literature. At the University of Connecticut, she obtained a master’s degree in education, focusing on adult services.
In the 1980s, she and husband Bob Benjaminson lived in Tucson, Ariz. She divorced Benjaminson in the late 1980s.
In 1990 she married Robert Castle, the father of her daughter’s sorority sister. They soon moved to Oakland, and not long after their arrival, she applied for the job at the BRJCC.
“When they hired her, it was a part-time job, and it remained one,” said her husband Castle, who still lives in Oakland. “They only paid her for 30 hours and she put in about 90.”
When Castle came to work at the BRJCC, the senior program was deeply in debt, said her husband. But “she turned it around and brought it out of the hole.”
With the help of her husband and others, they created a senior center at one of the rooms at the JCC.
“We tore it down to the studs, and rebuilt the whole room,” he said. Once the seniors had a room of their own, that “gave them some status and class and recognition,” said her husband.
In 1993, Castle was invited to speak at the National Council on Aging about how she turned the program around financially.
“Most senior programs run at a deficit, and she got it to break even,” her husband said. “Everyone in the country wanted to know how she did it.”
In 1998, Castle told the Jewish Bulletin about how seniors stayed active by taking classes at the BRJCC: “Our classes are not Mickey Mouse classes,” she said. “If they want to socialize, they’ll come for the lunches.”
Castle began a “Brown Bag College” lecture series for seniors that took places in the middle of the day.
In 1999, Castle described to the Jewish Bulletin how she not only served hundreds of seniors, but had about 40 of them volunteering, too.
“They’re bagging bagels, slinging out lunch and doing whatever it takes,” she said. “I cherish and nurture them — they can only leave if they move away.”
Joel Bashevkin, executive director of the BRJCC, called her “dedicated and tireless” and said that she had to be especially creative in her programming since the seniors want exercise classes and the BRJCC has no fitness center.
“Every time I turned around there was a new martial art geared for seniors, either Tai Chi or Qigong, and all of these being applied and tailored for the near-frail,” said Bashevkin. “She was able to find great teachers who could teach in our space without all the fitness equipment.”
She also was an advocate of the kosher lunch program, recognizing how it brings the more isolated seniors out of their homes for a nutritious meal and socializing. Although she had to do a lot of fund-raising to keep it going, Castle felt it was a vital part of senior services.
Hilary Bendich, who served as chair of the older adult advisory committee, called her “a tremendously loyal fighter while being a sweet person. Her heart was definitely in the right place.”
In addition to her husband, Castle is survived by her son Evan Benjaminson of Tahoe City; daughter Julie Bocks of Scottsdale, Ariz.; stepdaughter Kim Westhoff of Phoenix; brother Arnold Bernstein of Cheshire, Conn.; four grandchildren and two step-grandchildren.
A memorial service for Castle will be held 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 4 at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St., Berkeley.
Donations can be made to the Nancy J. Castle Memorial Fund, c/o the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St., Berkeley, CA 94709.