San Fernando Valley : 100 YEARS YOUNG

So how does a veteran volunteer at Sherman Oaks Hospital and Health Center celebrate her 100th birthday?

If the volunteer is Starr Mitchell, the celebration includes a party with lemon cake (it’s her favorite), fruit punch, a book on Jewish history and a gathering of a few dozen of her favorite doctors, nurses and fellow volunteers from the hospital’s Social Services Department.

Mitchell is a great-grandmother to three, grandmother to five, mother of two and adopted mother of one if you count her daughter-in-law, as she does. She has volunteered at the hospital for 12 years--”twice a week religiously,” she explained, simply because she likes making cancer patients and depressed patients smile.

“She calls herself the ‘cheer-up girl,’ ” said Leslie Pionke, director of the Social Services Department.

And cheer up she does. At the hospital. At her card group, dubbed “Good Friends.” And at the rap group she formed at Prell Gardens retirement hotel in Van Nuys, where she has lived since the earthquake destroyed her Sherman Oaks home.

“I love being with people,” said Mitchell, who was actually 100 plus 12 days on Monday. “I like helping people. It does my heart good to cheer them.”