Episode 59: Sara Keary (Caregiver Counseling and Consultation)
Meet Sara Keary! She runs Caregiver Counseling and Consultation here in Watertown along with being involved with the community in other ways. We talk about her early years growing up with a mother who was director of a homeless shelter and spending time around that environment, facing and overcoming her own health challenges at a young age, her path to social work and specializing in work with older adults, her turn to focusing on the caregivers of aging people and end-of-life planning with an example of a particularly powerful story that shaped her forever, and we end with her involvement in the Watertown community from being a library trustee to Kearyoke.
(Click here to listen on streaming apps) (Full transcript below)
Find out more about Sara's Caregiver Counseling and Consultation at caregivercc.com.
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Transcript
Matt: 0:07
Hi there, welcome to the Little Local Conversations podcast. I'm your host, Matt Hanna. Every episode I sit down for a conversation with someone in Watertown to discover the people, places, stories, and ideas of Watertown. This time I sat down with Sara Keary, who runs her own caregiver counseling and consulting business and is involved with a few other things in the city. So I'll let her introduce herself, then we'll get into the conversation.
Sara: 0:30
My name is Sara Keary and I've lived in Watertown since 2013, moved to the Boston area in 2010. So I've been here 15 years in the Boston area. I came from Pennsylvania, so I still feel very mid-Atlantic, even though I've been in New England for almost longer than I've lived anywhere. So we're going to the Jersey Shore for the summer, which is not exotic, but the water is warm, so I'm much more used to the water in, like New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Delaware than I am, you know, up here. So it'll be nice to get in the water.
Matt: 1:04
Better than the waters here.
Sara: 1:07
Yeah, it's a little cold for me so. But in Watertown, I guess I'll talk professionally first, if that's okay?
Matt: 1:12
Yeah.
Sara: 1:13
So I, my professional work got sidetracked, I would say. So I defended my dissertation in social work, got my PhD in social work in March of 2015. And I was looking for small colleges, universities, schools of social work to be able to teach, do a little bit of research and then have a clinical practice. I work with older adults, primarily. So defended my dissertation in March and then my son was born in April. He came very quickly through adoption. We were not prepared at all. We had not a single baby item in our house.
Matt: 1:48
Yeah, that's a big change.
Sara: 1:51
It's a big change, yeah, it's a big change. So I'm really impressed with people who have registries for babies and are planning well in advance, you know, all the things they need. We got on a one-way flight to Columbus, Ohio, where he was born, and set up there for a couple of weeks until we could return home to Watertown. And we returned home from Watertown and I was starting to look for jobs and then I found out I was pregnant with my daughter. So my kids are 10 and a half months apart. So that really changed my work life or what I envisioned for myself. And I feel really foolish, as a parent, thinking about how I couldn't fully appreciate how much raising people was going to take out of me.
Matt: 2:34
I mean, you can't until you do it. Like you try and explain to people who don't have, you just can't.
Sara: 2:38
You can't, you can't, and I was raised as an only child of a single parent, and so it was very different. Like, my experience as a parent was very different as what I saw parents as, or even as a child. So the idea of siblings is wild to me. So things kind of got, my plan wasn't going to be feasible, at least for the foreseeable future, when my kids were so little. Which was hard for me, but at the same time I was still able to do some of the work I really loved.
Sara: 3:08
So while my son was an infant and I was pregnant, I was able to do some research with the Fenway Institute and the LGBT Aging Project, where we conducted focus groups and surveys for sexual and gender minority older adults and housing as they age. So that was great. I was able to be involved in that. And I was also able to teach for some remote social work programs like Simmons, they have an online program. Before remote learning became quite ubiquitous after the pandemic.
Matt: 3:33
Before it was cool.
Sara: 3:34
Before it was cool, yeah. And then also taught at Boston College in their social work program, their course on social work practice with LGBTQ children, youth, families, and then taught for a long time in their older adults and families concentration, so working with older adults.
Matt: 3:51
Yeah, let's go even farther back. So how did you get interested in social work? Why did you get into that even to begin with? What was the before even that?
Sara: 4:00
It was not a super conscious choice. I think it happened when, so I was raised an only child of a single mom and my mom was the director of a homeless shelter for women and their children. And as I was growing up I didn't have, you know, family around to watch me after school so often she would come home from work and pick me up and take me back to the shelter where she was the director. And we would often spend time with the women and their kids and have dinner there. So I was always around the environment of, this idea of, give what you can, take what you need. And so that just was how we lived.
Sara: 4:39
So then when I was 15, I was diagnosed with a chronic illness, a GI disorder called, it was ulcerative colitis at the time. It was a digestive disorder, later re-diagnosed five years after that with Crohn's disease, which is similar, inflammatory bowel disease. So I was also very oriented to health issues, having to advocate for myself. My mom had me very early on calling doctor's offices, health insurance companies when we would get a bill, to understand, no, actually this isn't a bill, this is an explanation of benefits. I don't need to freak out. Or here's how much money we have to budget for co-pays and medication and time and treatments. So it was kind of always oriented to advocacy, I guess, for myself, for other people. And was very fortunate, because it's funny, because at the same time of that re-diagnosis of Crohn's disease is when I made the switch from being an English major to social work.
Sara: 5:33
I never put that together, I never realized that until just now. I don't think that re-diagnosis propelled me into social work, but I think the timing, just how it worked out because I was able to change my major. I was up against having a total colectomy, so having a colostomy bag at 20 years old. And was able to avoid that surgery because of a re-diagnosis and other testing. So that allowed me actually to be put on a trial medication at the time for Crohn's disease and it gave me a fully functioning life. Like I wasn't able to fully participate in my life before because I was on medications that were pretty strong, that had a lot of side effects or the symptoms of the disease were pretty brutal, that I couldn't have a full active social life. So that actually allowed me to have a really robust end of undergrad where I had social work internships, and then move into my master's program. And work, work, be in school and have an internship. All because my health was stable. So I think it just it made a lot of sense.
Sara: 6:37
And I think too, a lot of people maybe do what they see their parents do. And so my mom, while I was in high school, finished her master's degree in social work. She met my stepdad who had his master's degree in social work. They did very different things. She was more of a clinical practitioner and he was macro and directed the food bank in South Central Pennsylvania, did a lot of fundraising, worked in United Way, retired from HUD. I always saw it as a very versatile degree and thought I can do lots of different things with that. And that's kind of how I ended up getting my master's degree in social work. And most of my clinical work has been in geriatric psychiatry. So working with older adults with mental illness or dementias. And I did that work here for a little while.
Matt: 7:18
And what made you get into that area specifically?
Sara: 7:22
I don't have a really great story for that. And actually one of my clients last week, she herself is in her early 80s, retired physician, and she said to me, I just I can't stand the geriatric population, Sara, why do you? And I told her, I said I'm deeply offended by that because it's my favorite group. And she said how did you get into it? Did you have great relationships with your grandparents or older people? And I said actually, no, quite the opposite. Both of my parents come from, you know, difficult family lives and estrangement and I didn't have close relationships with older people in my life.
Sara: 7:58
But when I worked in graduate school I worked at the psychiatric hospital where I ended up getting my first job post-grad school. So I worked as the title was milieu therapist, it was like a mental health tech person. The hospital was divided by floor and so kind of by diagnosis and age. So there was a kids unit, there was a developmental disorders unit, there was a geriatric unit, substance use disorders unit, severe and persistent mental illness, like schizophrenia, schizoaffectiveiatric disorders unit and eating disorders unit. It was kind of divided that way and I worked on a lot of floors and would cover wherever there was a need. And then two positions were open for social work jobs. One was eating disorders and one was geriatrics.
Sara: 8:40
And my work before had been in HIV and AIDS, so in a nonprofit and in a clinic. And having worked on the eating disorders unit and knowing my history with GI issues, it was a very difficult place to work. And I, my heart is so heavy for anybody who experiences eating disorders or love people who have eating disorders. And they taught us in social work school to find out what we really liked and then to also identify where we couldn't work. And I realized that that was one population I didn't think I would be able to work in because of how difficult it was. And so I was presented with there's an eating disorders social work position and a geriatric social work position.
Sara: 9:17
You can pick. And how fortunate, how fortunate was I to be able to have that opportunity to decide and I chose geriatrics. And I fell hard in love with it, with the population, with the people who worked in the field. I think people who work in geriatrics are some of the most fascinating, interesting people I have ever met. And it gave me, it just opened my eyes to so much in terms of life. And I felt so much more comfortable working with older people than younger people. Because I feel like working with younger people, youth are so impressionable and there's so much responsibility and I feel like, well, when you get to 80, you've seen so much already that it's like I can't really harm anybody,
Matt: 10:00
It's harder to change them.
Sara: 10:02
Yeah, but the people, people can. But I also felt like teachers, people who work with kids, like their jobs are, not that my job isn't important, but it just felt like so much more responsibility, working with kids. So I ended up in geripsych, got really interested in end-of-life care, the ethic behind end-of-life care, death and dying. Worked a lot with people who were not quite at hospice-level eligibility for dementias. And just saw a lot of pain and anguish around what is available and what's not available for people at the end of life, whether it's from a dementia or another life-limiting or terminal illness, and got very interested in that. And then my work in grad school here was around end-of-life care and aging services.
Matt: 10:56
So a couple things there that stuck out was, well, one when you're saying you didn't know the reason, again, outsider perspective just hearing this story for the first time, I wonder if you being in the shelter and helping take care of people that were older than you had an impact on you. That was one outside perspective. And then also that time you were talking about when you first got into the geriatrics, is there a particular story that you would be okay with sharing that, like, really was impactful for you and really solidified your wanting to be in that field, you know?
Sara: 11:25
Yeah, there is a person who stands out, a patient and his family, that I will always remember and always come back to when I think about this work. This was a young man. He was in his late 40s and he was diagnosed with a dementia, a frontotemporal dementia. And he was very physically strong. He had his JD and his PhD in, I think, microbiology and did patent law, and he and his wife lived in California. And when he received the diagnosis they relocated to Pittsburgh where I was working at the time at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, the psychiatric hospital. I was a social worker on the team. To be close to family and to be close to the medical system there. I came to learn that he had a very clear end-of-life care advance directive for himself where he had it spelled out that he wanted to facilitate ending his own life. We didn't have the language for it then, but it was essentially medical aid in dying, where someone who has a terminal illness can make a decision, is an adult who has a capacity and has cleared evaluations by independent physicians to take medications that would end their life. He had this pact with his wife. They had a teenage daughter. He never executed that plan.
Sara: 12:48
By the time they were in Pittsburgh, he had passed the point of being able to make that conscious decision for himself. And his wife had promised him I will facilitate it for you. She could never bring herself to do it and plus it would be murder if she were to have done that. So he had come into the hospital, into our unit, because he was again quite physically strong and had been hurting himself and other people and this was not at all what he envisioned for himself. And in fact it was very clear he could not communicate this to us. He was nonverbal, he could only moan, grimace, grunt. It was difficult to assess pain for him. So we used her assessment, his wife's assessment. And he came into our hospital once, I was not on the team at the time. It was a very controversial case because of the use of medications to sedate him, because he needed to be in physical restraints, because he was so strong and would hurt people. And he had never hurt people before, he was not a violent person. So he was able to get stabilized enough to return to the skilled nursing facility where he was living. Now again, late 40s, strong, physically robust man living in an environment with much more physically frailer, older people in their 80s. He returned to that unit, very quickly, returned back, was readmitted to the hospital with us on a different team.
Sara: 14:07
We switched teams because of how difficult the case was. So it was myself, another attending psychiatrist, a PA, we had chaplains, we had other like milieu therapists, mental health techs. She worked really hard to advocate for something called palliative sedation, which I have, I was 26 at the time, learning about all of this and supporting her through, supporting his wife through this case. And I met with her almost daily, his wife, and she would say, please, like, please, help us do something where his pain can be alleviated. So we ended up having a big ethics consult. We involved our legal department, our chaplaincy team, like every discipline that was available we had at the table with her.
Sara: 14:56
We ended up consulting with Bob Arnold he's a well-known medical bioethicist in Pittsburgh. And everyone decided and, given the fact that we had his advanced directive, his medical advanced directive, was the most important piece of this. We were able to facilitate transfer for him to a hospice residence with palliative sedation. It was very complicated, it was very controversial. We had his advanced directive, we had his wife, we had the previous admission to go off of, that we knew that this was not the life that he would want for himself. And so palliative sedation is a form of palliative care and pain management where someone is put in quote, a palliative coma, where pain medication is used to sedate someone to the point where they're not able to communicate or move very much. But then the goal is then to come out of that and then reassess, like is someone in less pain? So with bioethics there's a standard of double effect, where an outcome of a treatment can be different than the intention of a treatment. And so what ended up happening with him was that he did die soon after he was transferred to the hospice residence with the palliative sedation.
Sara: 16:10
It was a huge case. And I remember her looking at me and saying please don't let the end of his life go without purpose. And I was applying to PhD programs at the time and we as a team decided, invited her, we talked about having a grand rounds for that case. And she came back and allowed us to interview her in a packed auditorium with residents, interns, social work, all the hospital staff. And it left an impression on me more than anything. And so that's why I returned to graduate school. Again, did a lot of work in end-of-life care, advanced care planning, looked at what are the factors that increase the likelihood that someone will have had conversations about what they want for themselves at the end of their life if they're not able to make decisions or communicate their preferences. And then what factors also contribute to people having documents. And so that's how I got to the work that I currently do.
Matt: 17:01
Gotcha. So let's take us back to Watertown now and having the kids. How do you deal with such like an emotionally strong job while having kids too? Like that seems like you would have to come and unwind after that type of a day. And then taking care of kids is a lot of emotional work as well, so how do you balance that?
Sara: 17:24
I feel like, I feel very much with both my kids and my work, that I get to do these things. Like I get to be in spaces with people where they talk about their end-of-life plans or the struggles they experience with caregiving for people who have life-limiting illness or who have significant cognitive impairment, that they don't recognize their person anymore. And I get to raise my kids. It all feels like such a privilege. All of it feels like such a privilege. I think it may go back to being a kid and seeing what I had and what I didn't have, or what others had and they didn't have. And then also being quite sick as a kid, in and out of the hospital a lot. It all feels, I don't mean to sound dramatic about it, but it all feels kind of like borrowed time. I didn't know what was going to happen to me as a kid with my health.
Sara: 18:12
I walk a lot. Part of why I walk so much is because there was a time where I couldn't walk around the block as a teenager and as a 20-year-old because of the symptoms of my disease. And so the fact that I can walk every day up Palfrey, down Palfrey, up Common, I do some like side hills in there, that I can do hills and I can walk long distances.
Sara: 18:35
It is not, it is not wasted on me how fortunate I am to be able to do that. And so I think I get to be in those spaces with people talking about their deaths and their end of life, and I get to be in these also really intense spaces with my kids. So I don't feel drained by that work. But I feel, in a really weird way, that my parenting has given me more confidence in talking to people about end of life and I feel like my end of life work has given me more perspective in raising my kids. I don't know, I feel like I'm a better parent because of that work and I feel like I'm a better clinician because of being a parent.
Matt: 19:10
Yeah, yeah, I can see the two perspectives being interesting there. So what is the work you're doing now with your work then?
Sara: 19:17
So my work now is I have a practice called caregiver counseling and consultation, where I work with caregivers of aging people. So adult children, spouses, partners, siblings, friends, to really take a minute and turn the focus on the caregivers. Because when older people are given a diagnosis of a significant life-limiting illness, dementia in particular I work with a lot of caregivers of people with dementia, the focus tends to be on the patient, the person with the illness, and it should be. And what's happened, I've seen, is that we have a lot of resources, we don't have as much as we need, but we have a lot of resources for people with the illnesses. And what's become of the caregivers is that they've become, I've seen this term used, the invisible victims of, especially dementia. And in my work, I think going back to the wife of that patient I referred to my work was with her.
Sara: 20:13
I was an advocate for him, but my work was really with her, witnessing her experience, validating her experience. And in my hospice and palliative care work it was often with the caregivers because at a certain point the patients themselves would be transitioning and on medication for comfort. So my work really kind of focused on the caregivers. And I work with people who have conflicted feelings about caregiving and a lot of people who feel ashamed, saying that caregiving doesn't feel like a gift to them or that they wish it would all just stop because their lives have been changed so profoundly. Like they see their person's autonomy and choices being taken away and limited by their illnesses and my clients, their choices and autonomy and opportunities are also being limited, because they're then the people that make it possible for the patients to live out what they wanna live out. And so I provide space, and especially for people who have not had great relationships with the people that they're caring for historically. So if there's been abuse or addiction, betrayals and they're turning around and providing the most intimate care for people, it's really, really painful for the people that I support. And so I help people using a framework of ambiguous loss.
Sara: 21:35
Looking at, you know, this person may be physically very present but psychologically completely absent. And the version of your person or your parent that care staff are seeing may be really good and you're being told constantly oh, we love your mom, she's so great. When, in the back of your mind, some of my clients are like they have no idea how abusive she was or how difficult it was. So that's the work now. It's primarily around supporting caregivers of aging people. But then what's happening with that is I'm getting a lot of referrals and new clients who want to plan for themselves. And so now I'm kind of transitioning a bit into end of life or death doula work, where you help people plan for themselves for the end of their lives, where they want to be what they want to have happen.
Matt: 22:20
Right. So are like you reaching out to hospitals or like how do you, how do you find these people?
Sara: 22:26
My referrals come from internists, primary care doctors, geriatricians, geriatric psychiatrists, geriatric care managers, elder law attorneys, people who work in the field of the older adult population.
Matt: 22:39
And so a lot of people, and at this point, it's a lot of people in the Boston area, or is it more regional?
Sara: 22:45
Mostly the Boston area. I also met this woman, she's, if I can make a plug for a resource. This woman, Dasha Kiper, wrote a fabulous book called Travelers to Unimaginable Lands. And it's about caregivers or people who have dementia, and it is the best account of the experience of dementia caregivers that I've read. She essentially talks about the caregivers of dementia having almost similar presentations of people who have dementia. Which sounds kind of wild to think about it, but when you live with someone who has dementia and you're caring for someone who has dementia, you're constantly repeating yourself. You're forgetting things all the time. You might be sleep deprived and feel a little bit delirious and have a loose grasp on what reality is. So a lot of those symptoms kind of mimic each other. So I reached out to her. I just emailed her and said thank you for this book. I have been recommending it to people, to my clients. So we had a Zoom meeting and she's based in New York. And so actually she'll send people to me too. So that's been a really awesome connection to have with her.
Matt: 23:51
Yeah, I know you have a lot to talk on that and we could talk on that topic for a while, all this work, but I do want to make sure we also touch on what you're doing in Watertown, because that's not all you do. You also are involved in the community as well. What was the first thing you got involved with in the Watertown community?
Sara: 24:07
My son was born in 2015. My daughter was born in 2016. And I vividly remember it being September of 2016. I remember because I was teaching and I came across a Watertown News article where I learned that there were folks in the school district who received a grant from the Watertown Community Foundation for the Kingian nonviolence program. So a partnership between the schools and the Watertown Police Department. And I remember thinking we live here, we live in Watertown where this is happening. I never heard of anything like that before, with a partnership between a police department and a school district, with Kingian nonviolence, restorative justice. And so I thought I feel really lucky, I get to live here, where my kids will get to go to school and live in a city that has these values.
Sara: 24:54
And so then, about a year later, and my kids were not in the school district yet, so about a year later, I believe it was when Dede Galdston became superintendent, and there was the formation of the Anti-Bias Coalition that I learned anybody could attend that. If you lived in the city you could go, if you had kids or not or, if you're a community member. I thought, well, my kids are going to be in the district, and so I started attending those meetings and got to know other people who were committed to the social justice Kingian principles. So that was 17. And then got really involved in the schools, I would say through the diversity and belonging councils and the elementary level. Because my son started kindergarten on Zoom and then when we went back in person, I knew that the Lowell School had had a diversity and belonging council and I think Cunniff and Hosmer were talking about getting one. And so another parent and I emailed the principal, Erin Moulton, at Hosmer and said, hey, can we do this?
Matt: 25:46
Why was this important to you? Why was it important for you to, this topic, to bring into the schools and such?
Sara: 25:51
I think it goes way back to my own experience as a young kid and growing up around economic, racial, ethnic diversity and really wanting that for my kids, really wanting my kids to have access to adults and people who value equity and inclusion and belonging. And for my own family, we checked some of those boxes in terms of identities and differences. And so it felt like this was a place I could put my energy. And I wanted to meet other adults. I wanted to meet, and the importance of community too. Like I wanted my kids to have other grown-ups besides their parents who they could turn to, they could lean on for support, who also valued belonging, connection, embracing our differences, and making room for everybody. And so I saw the Anti-Bias Coalition work and the values of the school in terms of helping kids develop their social and emotional learning as well, and so I thought that's a place that I feel like I could put my time and energy. And it fit with my social work background and my values.
Matt: 27:00
Yeah, and so what did that group do?
Sara: 27:02
Well, we started by just holding meetings and saying, you know, if you're interested in equity and belonging and inclusion and diversity efforts in the Hosmer School, please come to these meetings. So we had all the meetings on Zoom. We couldn't do a ton in person, but when we could, we started having play dates in the summer. And we would do a book club for adults. And then we would get together and talk about ways that we could make community activities, school activities, more inclusive. So making sure that we were reaching people who maybe felt like they didn't belong in the space, whether because of a disability or a financial barrier. And we wanted to make sure too, that we held events that were free, that there wasn't like a donation component to it, so that families could come and attend.
Matt: 27:51
This is like that cultural appreciation nights.
Sara: 27:54
Yeah, yeah. So we, yes, thank you. So we started the, not the cultural appreciation night, not the cultural celebration nights or weeks, those were already in place. But we started the winter warmer, the Hosmer winter warmer, where we would ask people to bring a comfort food or something warm that symbolized community for them. And we didn't charge a fee to come in. But we had, we got a DJ and we had activities and we wanted it to be a family, community event where people could come and not have to contribute financially. And then we also took a pretty big group of kids to, and their caregivers to, the MFA to see the Obama portraits when they were here. And we had a very generous donation from a Hosmer parent to cover the admission fee for as many kids and adults who wanted to go. We have presence at the Pride events, the Watertown Faire in the Square. We also partner closely with the SEPAC, the Special Education Parents Advisory Council, and do a lot of work and advocacy with them too.
Matt: 28:50
Yeah, nice. And then I also know you got involved with the library. So how did that happen?
Sara: 28:56
Yeah. So I never in my life thought I would run for public office, but I did. I ran for library trustee. It was really out of a wanting to give back to something that. The library has helped me raise my children, I have spent.
Matt: 29:12
I was there like 300 days a year for the first few years of my son's life.
Sara: 29:16
Yeah, and I felt like I felt a real sense of community there. I felt, like when you become a parent you're kind of like I don't know what to do, I don't know where to go. But I felt very welcome there, if my kids were loud, if my kids were running around. They were just around people, adults, other kids and the values that I wanted to raise my kids around. And so we spent a lot of time. And I also saw how the library really responded in the pandemic and was able to keep people connected in terms of the book deliveries and the, you know, putting books out. They sacrificed a tremendous amount. They really kept people, I've worked with clients. I've worked with clients who have said that the Watertown Free Public Library kept me going in the pandemic.
Sara: 30:02
So it is not an exaggeration. And so I thought, okay, I would like to do this thing and give back. And I had a really hard and fast lesson in public service in the four years I've been on the board. I'm not seeking re-election and there's a lot of really great people who are running.
Matt: 30:19
What was one of the biggest surprises for you once you got on the board about something behind the scenes there?
Sara: 30:23
I always kind of knew this. I mean the ALA and the NASW, the American Library Association and the National Association of Social Workers missions are quite similar in a number of ways. But our library staff are so skilled at working with people that I think unless you're in a library or work in a library, often you don't fully realize. I think there's a lot of stereotypes about librarians. And our librarians and our library staff are so involved in safety, belonging, balancing all of those things that I feel like they all deserve honorary social work degrees because of what they do and the support that they provide for people who may not feel comfortable other places or that they belong other places.
Sara: 31:16
And so that is a tremendous job that is not always understood. Like I kind of always peripherally knew it, but I saw how involved the directors have to be and the support that staff need to be able to continue day in and day out, every day, to provide service to people who are coming into the library because they need some air conditioning and they otherwise aren't going to be anywhere else or they're unhoused to people who are there, you know, working on a dissertation, you know, or going there to do work or bringing their kids. Like to be able to meet the needs of that distribution of people in a place that's free and that it's open all the time, takes incredible skill and compassion and teamwork. And so, since I've really come to understand it, it's just never ceased to amaze me, everything that they are charged with at the library.
Matt: 32:05
Yeah, when you think about it, they do a tremendous amount of stuff. Well, we've been chatting for a bit here, so I don't know, was there any other topics that we didn't hit on that you wanted to get out there at all?
Sara: 32:18
I guess this will be my shameless plug for my love of karaoke and my appreciation to you for Porchfest because truly I love it so much. I love the Watertown Porchfest that you have been involved in creating and your efforts in the community. I'm really excited for when the tables are going to turn and I'm so curious of who's going to interview you because I really want to understand, especially as a parent, you and Katie are so in the city and in the town too. I'm so interested to know your origin story of this.
Sara: 32:53
But I started what is now called Kearyoke. At a midlife crisis I asked for a karaoke machine for Christmas and just started singing wherever I could, by myself, sometimes when my kids were in bed, in the bathroom, at the kitchen table, in the basement, wherever I could. And I just started posting on social media because I was like this makes me really happy and I don't have friends on Facebook who I don't know in person. So I was like these people know me, that it's fine. And then people started requesting songs and I would do songs. And then I did it on my front porch last year for Porchfest. And it was really low budget but it was the most fun I've had in a long time, having parents and kids sing together. And this year I was fortunate to be in a driveway at the Spring and Palfrey intersection, that block party, and did karaoke there. And it was the most fun I've had in a long time.
Sara: 33:51
I even put, I think, like the research part in me found health and emotional benefits of singing karaoke. A lot of the research is out of Japan and it's amazing. So there's a lot of like, and for older people, there's a lot of benefits for older people too. Pulmonary, cardiac, social connectedness helps decrease social isolation. It's all of these benefits that are tremendous for people, especially as we age. And so I put a sidewalk chalkboard and wrote the benefits. And then I made sure that everybody got a trophy after they sang, because I tell my kids and everybody it doesn't, you do not have to be good, you do not have to have a beautiful voice, as long as you feel good doing it. That is the goal. It was truly the most joyous experience I've had in a really long time and it's really fun. And I would not have had the opportunity to do something like that, if you hadn't started Porchfest. So thank you for that.
Matt: 34:44
Yeah. Well, thanks for being part of it. I think during my stint there I saw a certain city councilor, I won't say who, giving a good go at it. So you really got many people of different ilks involved there. So, yeah, that was a great addition to that block party that was fun last year and even better this past year too.
Matt: 35:06
So, yeah, thank you for being part of it and bringing something unique there. And the health benefits, I hear the other day, you know, like wind players, none of them snore because they all have great airways. So like, if you have sleep apnea or something, go learn a wind instrument. You know, music can help with so many of those things. Anyway, could go down that road for a while too. But, yeah, thank you so much for sitting down and sharing all your thoughts and stories here and appreciate it.
Sara: 35:27
Thank you, Matt. I appreciate it.
Matt: 35:29
So that's it for my conversation with Sara. I'll put a link in the show notes so you can find out more about her business. If you liked this episode and you want to hear more interviews, you can head on over to littlelocalconversations.com. There you can find all the episodes, all the interviews. You can sign up for my weekly newsletter. And if you like the podcast, you can press the support local conversation button in the menu to support the podcast. And I want to give a few shout outs here to wrap things up. First one goes to podcast sponsor Arsenal Financial, which is a financial planning business that is owned by Doug Orifice, a very committed community member here in Watertown from being involved with the Watertown Business Coalition, the Watertown Cultural District, and other things. But his business, Arsenal Financial, helps busy families, small businesses, and people close to retirement. So if you need some financial help, you can reach out to Doug and his team at arsenalfinancial.com.
Matt: 36:18
I also want to give a thank you to the Watertown Cultural Council, who have given me a grant this year to help support the podcast, so I want to give them the appropriate credit, which is, this program is supported in part by a grant from the Watertown Cultural Council, a local agency, which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency. You can find out more about them at watertownculturalcouncil.org and massculturalcouncil.org. And a couple more shout outs to promotional partners. First, the Watertown Business Coalition, which is a non-profit organization here in Watertown that is bringing businesses and people together to help strengthen the community. You can find out more about them at watertownbusinesscoalition.com. And lastly, Watertown News, which is a Watertown-focused online newspaper. Great place to keep up to date with everything going on in the city. Find that at watertownmanews.com. So that's it. Until next time, take care.
