Legendary blues musician Buddy Guy recently came out with a new song called “74 Years Young.” According to Jim Flanagan, of the Celebrating Seniors Coalition of Oak Park, River Forest, and Forest Park, that title about sums up the outlook of seniors these days. Even as they enter their twilight years, they still see a lot of life left in the years to come.
“Retirement has been reinvented,” said Flanagan, who for years has worked with senior citizens on matters of financial planning and is currently knee-deep in planning a dynamic, week-long coalition event.
The week of May 6-13 will launch the first annual Celebrating Seniors Week, full of senior-friendly activities and events. Wannabe yogis can drop in on the Saturday morning chair yoga course, while those in need of a brush-up on important paperwork can attend the Top Ten Documents event May 9, where representatives from the Oak Park Arms Retirement Community will offer advice on what legal and financial documents seniors should be keeping updated and on hand.
There’s an “introduction to email” course the morning of May 12, and a “Grandparents’ Storytime” at the River Forest Library that afternoon. But those events only skim the surface of the full program, which offers a range of social and educational events and more.
“It really was born out of my desire to thank and celebrate the older adults in our community for what they’ve done,” said Flanagan. He has benefited greatly, he added, from the relationships he’s forged with his elders over the years and felt it was time to give back.
All money raised from these events will be put into an account accessible only in the event of an emergency. The idea popped up several years ago, when Flanagan witnessed the effects of area flooding on senior community members who were unprepared for such an event. “When the floods came in 2008 … the vast majority of the people who were really hurt by it were older adults,” Flanagan said. “Fifteen to 20 individual homes were impacted.”
Mostly, the residents needed financial help to replace damaged furnaces, hot water heaters, and other big-ticket items. But there was no money to give. Flanagan approached Oak Park Township, but they didn’t have the resources to help out. FEMA’s disaster recovery funds wouldn’t kick in for months. In the meantime, there was no plan in place to help the elderly pump water out of their basements or replace defunct appliances.
When the bedbug problem spread across the nation, some older residents needed replacement mattresses. But there was no money for new ones.
So Flanagan set out to set aside funds for those and other unforeseen disasters, to build a mechanism that would help during disaster response in the future. It’s all part of a greater scheme to create a community that embraces what he calls “aging in place.” People, he says, should be able to remain in their communities for their lifetimes, rather than leaving to bunk with adult children or take up residence in a nursing home.
In order to do that, the community needs to make themselves more senior-friendly, which means well-lit streets kept clean and safe, parking availability close to buildings, careful retailers who keep their floors clutter-free to decrease the threat of tripping and falling, readily available resources for home repair. “It’s little things like that that allow people to stay in their homes a lot longer,” Flanagan said.
The nonprofit coalition embarked on the plan for Celebrating Seniors Week, determined to raise some money to begin an emergency fund. Flanagan admitted there isn’t much of a blueprint just yet, and the players are simply figuring things out as they go. In fact, he said, “we didn’t know if we’d raise $100 or $20,000.” The final number, he said, is closer to $20,000.
A Celebrating Seniors resource guide includes all of the event information, plus senior profiles, a community listing, emergency information, and more. The guide also includes a long list of retail promotions attached to Celebrating Seniors Week, from providers like Borders, Whole Foods, Magic Tree Bookstore and many more. Wells Street Popcorn, for instance, is offering 15 percent off purchases for customers 60 years and older. Blue Cab is offering free rides to anyone attending a Seniors Week event, with 24-hour notice.
“There’s probably about 30 businesses doing special promotions,” said Flanagan, noting that the coalition has already gotten inquiries from other townships and communities across the state about the event. He believes they’re creating a model that will be duplicated nationally. After all, he said, thousands of people are hitting the age of 65 every day, and unless nearby villages want to see residents graduate their children from high school and then move away, there need to be resources in place for older adults.
“That’s important to the longevity of our community,” he said.