Lincoln Land Community College’s Academy of Lifelong Learners (ALL) began a new year July 1, 2025. Our last membership year showed the organization growing to over 500 members. Wow! What is it that people see about ALL that keeps them coming back for more year after year?
Mostly it’s the great people and the wonderful programs. Our volunteer activity leaders provide something for everyone. You can learn about our past with History Hunters, read great books with Book Lovers and keep active with Path Finders and Pickleball. You can learn new activities like Mah Jonng and Hand & Foot while you meet some new friends or visit with people you’ve gotten to know. There are day trips Around Town, Wander on Wednesday trips that take you farther afield and so much more. For $60 per year, it has to be one of the best deals around.
Also on July 1, I had the honor to begin my year as president of ALL. I look back on all the great happenings of the previous years and hope that the coming year will be just as beneficial to members old and new. I am looking forward to beginning some new programs and to the exciting experiences offered from our tried-and-true ones.
My focus this year is “Curious About Cultures.” For those of you who know me, you know that my husband, Mike, and I spent 20 years living on islands in the Bering Sea off the west coast of Alaska. There we lived among the Yup’ik indigenous people and came to appreciate much about their culture. This awakened in me an interest in cultures from all over our world. Perhaps that interest began years ago when I was in high school and my family hosted a foreign exchange student from England. I’ve been fortunate to travel in Europe, Central and South America and New Zealand, but being a tourist is not the same as living within a culture. Only by experiencing the daily lives of people from different backgrounds do we truly come to appreciate that differences are part of the richness of human experience. The more we can learn about other cultures and other people, the better we are able to understand what is happening in our world.
One of the new activities with which I hope to explore other cultures is the Curious About Cultures book club. Meeting at 5:30 p.m. on the second Tuesday of each month, this book club will read novels by authors from a variety of cultures. I’m hoping this will lead to a lively exchange of ideas about the books and also about the cultures. Over the course of the coming year, we will explore the cultures of India, Russia, Asia, Africa, Mexico and the USA, among others. I am encouraging other program leaders to join in learning about each particular culture when it is appropriate to their activity.
People are always welcome to suggest new programs and activities for ALL. I’ve heard talk of a Games group. Maybe some members can share their travels around this world in a travelog group. Is there interest in genealogy? How about a group where people can learn and practice needlepoint, knitting, crocheting and other needle crafts? Would conservation be a topic of interest to some of our members? So many ideas and just as many people to move our group forward. All we need are people with ideas who are willing to begin putting those ideas into action.
Our annual Chili Event is scheduled for Sept. 28. As always, we will be providing a tasty meal where you can dine in, carry out or get drive-through service. This is a fundraiser for ALL that helps support our programming.
We also want to give a shout out to the great staff in LLCC’s Community Education office. They support us in so many ways. That office also works with various other programs. I took a sign language class through Community Education last year — another reason to join us and learn more about what LLCC has to offer!
Hopefully you’ll come and join us this year as we continue to learn together in a variety of ways. Go online at www.llcc.edu/all or call LLCC Community Education at 217-786-2432 to explore membership.