Remembering our Friend

Our dear friend and colleague, Catherine Saltwick, passed away on 30 May 2008 in Botswana, Africa where she was posted as a Peace Corps Volunteer. We, her fellow Peace Corps Volunteers, have created this blog to honor her and to allow all of her many friends, PCVs and her family to share their stories and their grief. To say we are shocked and saddened by the accident that took her from us is an understatement. To say she is missed and will never be forgotten is a truth.

Cathy was a seeker of truth, a seeker of adventure and a seeker of love and she found it all in Botswana. She served in the small village of Mookane and enjoyed her Peace Corps experience so much, she had just signed up for an extended third year of service, where she was to be posted at PSI in Gaborone. She spoke fluent Setswana, a feat few of her fellow PCVs accomplished. She said that the Peace Corps changed her for the better, but we all thought she was wonderful the first day we met her. Her motto was: “It’s all good,” and she said it often.

Cathy is respected by so many and we will miss her terribly. Her spirit lives on in each of us because she touched our lives with her inner and outer beauty, with her love of life, with her calm assurance of confidence and contentment and with her life of service and caring about others.

We are proud to call her a friend and we love her.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

dance/service scholarship in Cathy's name.......

Hello, My name is Kim Gockel and I am an old friend of Cathy's from her Westlake Dance Center days. I recently attended her memorial and was very touched and inspired by the service organizations Cathy was involved in and the stories people were there to tell about Cathy to honor her and remember her as the fun-loving, caring and special person she was. My friends and I from dance remember her as a great friend and fellow dancer.
I am the director of an annual benefit performance called, "En L'air." Each year, for the last 5 years we have presented an annual performance of local dancers and choreographers and used the proceeds to benefit local charities such as Union Gospel Mission, Hopelink, Village Foundation, Ashley House and Consolidated Works. We take great pride in giving back to the community through dance. This year, I am so inspired by Cathy's story that I would like to start a scholarship for dancers who have also been highly involved in service projects, events, etc. and who plan to go on to college continuing their involvement in community/world service as well as pursue dance. We would like the show to be a tribute to Cathy and her work and we would love for you, her friends and family to be involved as much as you would like.
I would love to speak to someone who could help me in finding pictures, videos, etc. that we could use for part of the show. We are in the planning stages as of now. Our performance will be held on Nov. 15 and 16, 2008 at Broadway Performance Hall in Seattle. Please feel free to contact me @ enlairdance@hotmail.com if you are interested in contributing to our performance. We would love for someone to speak about Cathy and share her love of dance and people with our audiences.
A friend and I were talking about Cathy's death and we realized that it was definitely possible that we may never have seen Cathy again even if she had lived, but that her death was extremely difficult being the person that she was. Someone at the service said something to the effect of no matter when you were a part of Cathy's life, she left something with you and I find this to be very true. She was extra special to a lot of people.
Thank-you, Kim Gockel, En L'air Dance
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is Cathy's brother-in-law, Mike. Thank you for paying tribute to Cathy in this way; I'm sure she would be touched. I will be sure to let her family know and see how much involvement they want to have with this, but it sounds like an excellent idea.

kim said...

Mike, Will you contact me about the dance performance in Cathy's name?I recently lost my hotmail account and changed my e-mail to kim.gockel@gmail.com Thanks, Kim:)