Volume 13 • Number 16
The Voice of the Catalina Foothills
August 9, 2023
INSIDE
www.tucsonlocalmedia.com
UA student interns lead dementia program BY CHRISTINA FUOCO-KARASINSKI Tucson Local Media Staff
D Beat the heat with Kona Ice | Page 6 Oro Valley has a new Urgent Care
r. Sharon Arkin wants what is best for UA students and people who have mild to moderate dementia. She helms the Elder Rehab program at Desert Sports and Fitness, a private gym that specializes in programs for seniors. Elder Rehab matches its memory-challenged participants with trained UA student interns and volunteers. The students provide their respective partners with 20 twice-weekly, two-hour sessions per semester. Each session consists of an hour of physical exercise and an hour of language and memory stimulation activities. Formerly located at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, the research-based program is starting its second year at Desert Sports and Fitness at
| Page 7 Stay the night with Chicago | Page 8
See ARKIN Page 4
Dr. Sharon Arkin founded the Elder Rehab program. (Inset) For the Elder Rehab program, UA interns are paired with those diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. (Dr. Sharon Arkin/Submitted)
Foothills grad pursues journalism BY CHRISTINA FUOCO-KARASINSKI Tucson Local Media Staff
M
eena Venkataramanan, who graduated from Catalina Foothills High School in 2017, just wrapped up a stint working for the Washington Post in Washington, D.C. She said if it wasn’t for her alma mater, she wouldn’t have been prepared for a job like this. “I feel like Foothills allowed me to be independent and encourage me to take the initiative in pursuing my passions,” Venkataramanan said. “When I was at Foothills, I was on the
Meena Venkataramanan, who graduated from Harvard and Cambridge, is headed to Brown this fall. (Meena Venkataramanan/Submitted)
speech and debate team. That kindled my interest in a lot of social topics and issues. I also was able to do a lot relating to the social sciences there. That was really a steppingstone to what I’m doing now.” She was bitten by the journalism bug as an undergraduate at Harvard, as she didn’t have experience with it at Catalina Foothills. There, she focused on politics and law. Venkataramanan joined the staff of the Harvard Political Review and realized she was passionate about journalism itself — not just the issues she was covering. Among her internships was a spot at the See MEENA Page 5