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FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | MAY 2024 23 By Steve Benoff Before I retired, I had no time for volunteering. For over 40 years I ran my own custom electronics business from my home on the west side of LA. Amazingly, for much of that time in the early to mid years, we actually took jobs in the San Fernando Valley and Pasadena and even in Santa Barbara and Palm Springs. Back then, we could drive as a family to Glendale for dinner at a jazz club where our son David would occasionally sit in with the group on the drums. Those days vanished with the ever-increasing LA traffic. My wife Martha used to say that adding lanes to freeways was a wasted effort since those new lanes would rapidly fill up and return traffic to the previous grind. When we both still worked in LA, I would pick her up from a school in Inglewood where she taught special-ed, and we'd drive to our new home in Four Seasons for the weekend. That would be the start of a three-to-four-hour trip on the 10 or the 60. (Shouldn't Southern Californians write that as The 10 and The 60?!) When the 210 opened up, our trip east was shortened dramatically. That is, for about a month. After that it was the same slog to Beaumont. Anyway, back to volunteering. Once my business died its inevitable death (since I was the business and therefore had nothing of value to sell), I needed to fill my days with something besides riding my bike. (I actually had two bikes back then — one for LA and one for Beaumont.) So, I looked for volunteer opportunities. I had no background in law enforcement. But for some reason (maybe a story in the no-longer-delivered-but-still-available Record Gazette), I decided to join the Beaumont Police Citizens' Volunteer Program. But even with biking, CVP, and being treasurer and newsletter editor of my no-longer-extant congregation, I had time I needed to fill so I chose another area in which I had no experience — teaching. (By the way, I'm now on the finance committee and Board of Directors at our new temple in Palm Desert.) Over the years, I've donated to a website called Donors Choose which lists teachers' projects needing donor support. Mrs. Williams from Three Rings Elementary School was a frequent recipient so I sent an email to the school announcing my willingness to volunteer as an aide. Despite my stated preference for an upper grade, the only teacher interested in my offer was Mrs. Morales, a new kindergarten teacher. That was about five years ago, and I've enjoyed working in her classroom so much that I've stayed with her through three groups of kids (interrupted for two by Covid). And in the process, we've become good friends. My work in the classroom takes many forms. Sometimes I'd do actual teaching. Sometimes supervising. Sometimes busy work she'd have had to do had I not been there. One day she had me putting together gifts for the kids. Each consisted of some small items inside a large plastic drinking cup with a lid and straw. Each gift was to be labeled with a student's name. Ready? Here's the app. I noticed that among the pieces to be assembled into the 24 gifts (gifts, by the way, I'm sure Mrs. Morales paid for as she does throughout the year for many classroom supplies) were a few labels. After putting together the gift-filled cups, I offered to finish making the labels. But all I saw was a small device for printing labels with no keyboard. For years I've had my own Brother P-Touch label maker with its own keyboard. Its limited number of printing options has never been an issue for me as I've just accepted that as a given. But her labels were printed in a very attractive script style. What enabled this font was separating the print function from the data-entry function. And that's where the app comes in. Coupling a Supvan Thermal Printer with the Suprint app, one can print an amazing variety of labels. Unfortunately, I can't get into all the options available because the app won't work without a printer connected so downloading the app by itself doesn't allow me to go into the details. Just understand that with the combination of the printer and the app you can print hundreds of different labels with a wide variety of styles, fonts, and print sizes. You can print barcodes, QR codes, pictures, graffiti, symbols, shapes, and it even has some Excel integration. If my P-Touch had this capability, it would need a large screen and be able to take larger label rolls. And it still wouldn't duplicate the screen on my phone. And that's the point of separating printing from creating. All because there's an app for that function. If you use an app you'd like to share with others, let me know at steve.benoff@verizon.net. THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT! See Steve Make Labels. Go Steve, Go!

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