Every swing and every hit here is a point in Sokie Lee’s heart.<\/p>\n
“It’s about the process of playing,” she said. “I think the playing thing is more important than winning.”<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Sokie Lee donates her time to projects throughout Manhattan
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A big focus for her at the moment is her volunteer work with PingPongParkinson and the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House
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She also teaches tai chi and helps people kayak in the Hudson River<\/p>\n
Lee is a volunteer with PingPongParkinson. The organization holds sessions for people with Parkinson’s disease to get moving.<\/p>\n
“Ping-pong is good for cognition, flexibility and coordination,” she said.<\/p>\n
The cause is close to Lee’s heart \u2014 her mother had atypical Parkinson’s.<\/p>\n
“That’s always been in the back of my mind because I love my mom and I miss her,” Lee said.<\/p>\n
It isn’t the only place where the Kips Bay resident volunteers her time. She’s involved in six organizations and initiatives throughout the city.<\/p>\n
“Volunteering is something very positive that I can do; that I’m actually helping people in my own small way,” Lee said.<\/p>\n
She has been volunteering with the Downtown Boathouse, getting people on the water, for two decades. Lee also started a trash pickup group during the pandemic.<\/p>\n
She and her partner, Ken Gray, also lead free tai chi classes in Madison Square Park.<\/p>\n
“It’s easy in New York to kind of put yourself in a cocoon and not do anything,” Gray said. “And this is a way to reach out.”\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
A little farther uptown, Lee teaches Chinese mahjong at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House’s older adult center at Saint Peter’s Church.<\/p>\n
“It’s called ‘mahjong therapy’ because it’s therapy for the mind,” Lee said. “Therapy for the- therapy for the social aspect of it.”<\/p>\n
Like PingPongParkinson, the mahjong sessions also hold a special meaning for Lee. After losing a number of friends during the pandemic, the classes gave her new people to play with.<\/p>\n
“I really wanted to play mahjong,” she said. “There was nobody to play, so I decided to teach, like, my neighbors to play.”<\/p>\n
It is something the Neighborhood House participants welcome whenever they see her.<\/p>\n
“She’s very inspiring because she gives and she gives,” said Oymie Martin, a participant at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House. “I really admire her, and it’s really a great opportunity to learn from her,” she added.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I don’t have as much money to give,” Lee said. “What I give, I think, is even more valuable myself and my time interacting with people.”<\/p>\n
For dealing her city a winning hand, Sokie Lee is our New Yorker of the Week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every swing and every hit here is a point in Sokie Lee’s heart. “It’s about the process of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[25,7913,75,84,83,9,24,12,63,7912,27,200],"class_list":["post-300468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-app-top-stories","tag-chelsea-katz","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-pat-kiernan","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}