“Clowning saves my soul,” says Donna Gutowski. When she works as a clown, Donna goes by the alias “Spring-A-Doodle” and is part of the Grease Paint Alley Clowns, a group made up mostly of women in their late 60s and 70s. The group appears at local events for children and elderly adults around Western New York where they paint the children’s faces, make balloon animals, and perform magic tricks.

“Half of your social life goes away when you lose your spouse… no one means to, but nobody really keeps in touch,” Donna says. She became a clown after Maureen, the daughter of one of her patients, told her about their group. “I always wanted to be a clown, ever since I was 19,” she says, but she had to wait until her children were grown to see her dream fulfilled. 

Donna’s day job is to work as a caretaker for Amiel Mokhiber Sr., who is in the late stages of Alzheimer’s Disease. In caring for him, she cooks, grooms, entertains, engages with, and tries to keep him calm during six to twelve hours shifts two to three days a week. She is part of a team of six women who rotate through Amiel’s life as part of his Medicare team.

Through her twelve-year journey as a clown, Donna has come to rethink her role as a caretaker. Using clowning to bring joy to children in her community, she approaches clowning as another way that she can be a caretaker, on a larger scale. Becoming a caretaker for the elderly was another step in her journey.