Oak Park and Forest Park have been selected by Yale University and Midwestern University for a new, cutting-edge research project investigating the beliefs of older people.
This groundbreaking project, titled Action Community Engagement (ACE), has been in the works for several years and recruitment in Forest Park has now begun. The available slots are filling fast. Oak Park recruitment begins next week. If you have any interest or questions, please call the project coordinators at 708-445-2711 or email actioncommunityengagement@oakparktownship.org.
If you’re over 60, English speaking, and live in either Oak Park or Forest Park, you can receive $130 by completing all the research activities, which include:
• Attending six 1-hour weekly group discussions
• Participate in community group activities
• Complete three surveys, including a follow-up interview
The study is also recruiting group leaders to facilitate each of the six discussion sessions. The compensation for a group leader is $515 per group.
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As an elder person, one of my beliefs is that the two key existential problems facing all of humanity today are climate change and demographic change. The study announced above deals with one. The short piece below, written by Harry Rick Moody, deals with the other:
Letter to my granddaughter (for 2096)
Our granddaughter was born in 2016 and in 2096 she will be the same age I am now. I’ve written this letter for her to be opened in that year in the future:
I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the world that we’ve left to you. I’m sorry, but I did the best that I could. By now, if you’re reading this, you’re 80 years old, exactly the same age as I was in the year 2025, when I wrote this. The world you’ve lived in since you were a little girl is very different from the world in which I grew up and lived in.
I was born in the last year of World War II, and, yes, during my life I was aware of extreme weather events. But not the fire and flood, drought and heat waves that you’ve already had to live through. When I was young, I knew there were climate problems. But hardly anybody took them seriously. At a certain point, in the 1980s, we got warnings. But, once again, we didn’t take them seriously. Even when things began to get bad — by the 2010s when you were born — little was done to reduce greenhouse gases or to limit fossil fuels. Many of us knew what had to be done. But we didn’t do it.
I did the best I could: cutting back on air travel, reducing meat consumption. Your grandma and I even went vegan because of climate issues. We’ve contributed money to politicians trying to reduce global warming. I went on all those protest marches. I even joined groups of older people who realized we had created a mess for you. But it wasn’t enough. Things got worse and worse until the time I finally died. That’s why I’m leaving this letter for you: just so you know that some of us cared, some of us tried to stop things from getting worse. All I can say is: I’m sorry.