There's No Place Like Home -- Ecumen Celebrates 150 Years
There's No Place Like Home
Ecumen's 150th Gala celebration, in pictures. See full story, below.
Ecumen's "150 Years" graphics embedded in a beautiful ice sculpture, which chilled the Emerald Slippers as they coursed through the ice block and into waiting goblets.
Ecumen Board of Trustees members Debbie Cervenka (Chair of Philanthropy Committee) and Loanne Thrane (with husband Ralph) enjoying the gala festivities.
Gala organizer and Ecumen's Director of Philanthropy Stacey Minnick (three cheers, Stacey!) and Dana Wollschlager, Ecumen's Director of Real Estate Development. Having a good time.
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The Great Hall, minutes before the celebration.
Guests mingled as they perused the unique, one-of-a-kind creations by leading Minnesota artists featured in the "Imagine Home" silent auction, enjoyed hors d'oeuvres by CRAVE, sampled an "Emerald Slipper," the event's signature cocktail, and experienced a soulful performance by VocalEssence, led by visionary director and founder Philip Brunelle. Proceeds from the gala will help support Ecumen's Awakenings initiative, a groundbreaking new approach to Alzheimer’s care focused upon moving people away from unnecessary use of antipsychotic medications and awakening them to living as fully as possible.
Following are Kathryn's remarks from the event.
Good evening. It is so wonderful to see each of you. Thank you so very much for sharing this milestone with us and for your generous support of our mission to create home for older adults wherever they choose to live.
As you might have read in the Star Tribune this week, our mission is backed by 150 years of care. It all began when Lutheran missionaries sheltered children orphaned in the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. As a new century dawned, we moved into senior services in 1904. We were known in the 20th Century as the Board of Christian Service and then the Board of Social Ministry.
Entering the 21st Century, we embarked on a new path, a path of transforming senior services and creating a new future and new possibilities in aging. That path was marked by a new name – Ecumen. Ecumen, like the phrase Ecumenical, is derived from the Greek word for home. Our name underscores our mission to create home and that our front doors are open wide for new collaborations, new possibilities and new solutions that make lives better.
Ecumen’s work is changing aging. It has to. We’re all growing older. And we’re doing it at an unprecedented rate. In just 7 years, Minnesota will have more seniors than children – a first.
I see incredible opportunity for innovation in aging. In the last decade, our work has included the largest expansion of housing in our history; it’s led to growing at-home services that will continue to evolve; it’s led to work beyond the borders of Minnesota, and it’s leading to many new people supporting and helping us transform the aging experience. I’d like to share how your generous support this evening is Changing Aging:
Until the 1970s, the phrase Alzheimer’s was largely isolated to medical journals. Today more than 100,000 Minnesotans have Alzheimer’s. Without a cure, nearly half of people who reach age 80 will have Alzheimer’s or other form of dementia.
The culture of Alzheimer’s care in America has often resulted in the inappropriate long-term use of antipsychotic drugs. These medications are used to control verbal or physical outbursts that can occur with Alzheimer’s. Inappropriate long-term use of these drugs can lead to a person living life in a stupor, devoid of human emotion. In a sense, they’re put asleep.
Our work of changing aging means seeing things differently. Where some see Alzheimer’s, we see beautiful human beings. Several years ago we began working in partnership with a leading physician to see if we could change this culture of Alzheimer’s care. We started emphasizing non-pharmaceutical approaches, such as exercise, storytelling, aroma therapy, and teaching family members how to identify triggers to behavioral changes. This approach focuses on a person’s abilities and possibilities, not simply disabilities.
We’ve named this initiative “Awakenings,” because through this whole-person approach we have seen people awaken from a drug-induced stupor. We’ve dramatically reduced the use of anti-psychotic medications at Ecumen. And, most importantly, we’ve made lives better.
You can see that improvement in Joan in Two Harbors who now participates in balloon volleyball while smiling and laughing.
You can see it in Helen in Mankato. Helen’s care team learned from her family that she had had a favorite cat named Whitey. Upon leaving for World War II, her husband had given it to her to keep her company. Learning this, an Ecumen care professional shared a toy white cat with Helen as a gift and asked to learn more about Whitey. Helen adored that cat. Her outbursts subsided. By learning about Helen, and finding a source of her joy, we helped her find peace.
Our Awakenings pilot received a $3.8 million grant from the State of Minnesota’s Department of Human Services to measure the success of this work and lessons that can be applied elsewhere. Changing Aging means building on this work, providing training to others and transforming the culture of Alzheimer’s care. I’d like to applaud the people at Ecumen who have taken Awakenings from an idea to a reality and applaud each of you who have helped us raise $100,000 this evening for Awakenings.
In conclusion, I say thank you. Thank you so very much for celebrating with us and for honoring our mission to create home for older adults wherever they choose to live and our commitment to creating the future of aging for you, me and those we love. We’re all aging. And, with your support, the best is yet to come. Thank you.
In Honor and Memory at Ecumen North Branch
Ecumen last week honored two young women: one whose life was abruptly taken away and another who is continuing her legacy of making a difference at the senior living facility in North Branch.
Alissa Newham received the first Kristina Pinna Award in front of residents, fellow staffers and student volunteers on Friday afternoon. Presenting the honor was new Ecumen Administrator Nathan Johnson.
“I feel pretty proud,” said Newham, a dietitian who just completed her first year at the senior living community. “I feel very honored.”
PHOTO: Alissa Newham, who works at the Ecumen senior living facility in North Branch, is the first recipient of the Kristina Pinna Award. Pinna, at just 20 years old, died in a tragic car crash about a year ago, but her legacy lives on through the annual award named in her honor. Presenting the award last week was new Ecumen Administrator Nathan Johnson. Photo by Jon Tatting
With perfect attendance on the job, Newham helps others when she is ahead in serving food. She cleans and does extra cleaning jobs around the kitchen. She helps dish up food when the cooks are busy, said Johnson, reading from a co-worker’s nomination letter.
Alissa is a team player and encourages co-workers to do well in their jobs. She enjoys what she is doing and helps others feel they belong here. It’s the little things, from sharing a joke to commenting on how others look, that also show how Alissa goes above and beyond her normal job duties, he continued.
That co-worker was Elizabeth Fisk, who emphasized how Newham encouraged her, helped her in her own job duties when the pressure was on, such as serving breakfast on time for the residents.
“She makes the most out of the people she works with,” Fisk continued. “I enjoy her companionship, smile, laughter and the ‘there you go’ or ‘you did it’ comments. She trained me in…when I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I love working with her, and that is why I am nominating her for the Kristina Pinna Award.”
The award is named after Kristina Ann Pinna, from North Branch, who was just 20 years old when she was killed in a crash involving three other vehicles during morning rush hour Sept. 1, 2011, in a construction zone on Interstate 35E at Lino Lakes. Surviving the collision was her mother, Debra A. Hildebrand, who was not able to attend last week’s ceremony at Ecumen.
Of those who were on hand was Matt Lattimore, a social studies teacher at North Branch Area High School, along with students volunteering under the Student Community Involvement Program.
Lattimore remembers Pinna as a caring person and terrific student. And he can see why her legacy will live on for years to come through an award that recognizes her contributions at Ecumen North Branch.
“She was a wonderful person, a great student,” he said. “She was quiet, but she shined around people.”
Please Join Us in Sharing Your Veteran Tribute
Veterans Day 2012 is November 11th. In honor of America's veterans, we'd love your tributes or stories of a veteran you admire. Please share your stories and tributes here. Ecumen is proud to serve the Greatest Generation and help shape the future of aging for future generations. Please join us in sharing your tribute to any veteran of any generation. Below is a tribute from Ecumen blogger and veteran Jim Klobuchar. It honors Vietnam veteran Denny Wellmann, a native of Hanska, Minnesota:
The Day Corporal Denny Wellmann Came Home
He grew up on a farm near the small Minnesota community of Hanska. He was a laughing, fun-craving kid who lit the affections of the townspeople whether he was trying to be a farmer or a salesman at the Green Clothiers in nearby New Ulm .He lived in a small but active world of work, bowling parties, farm chores, ball games and fun with his pals.
He was called Denny by all who knew him, in school, on the farm and-- not much later-- in the jungles of Viet Nam. Along with hundreds of others who knew him, I will remember Denny Wellmann, a Marine corporal, on Veterans Day.
In the midst of the tumult of an approaching election and mounting unease over the direction of a divided America, the country on Veterans’ Day will try to regain its unity by remembering the sacrifice of those who fought to preserve it.
For Denny and the 58,000 others who died with him in Viet Nam and the 36,000 others in Korea, it has taken awhile.
The euphoria that followed victory in World War II was stirred by the nation’s gratitude to those who fought in it. American prosperity followed and America became the global leader. It also went to war again, in Korea and Viet Nam. Neither of those wars stoked the patriotic fervor of the American public. Thousands of young people fled the country to escape the draft. As the years stretched out Korea and Viet Nam were viewed by a large part of the public as needless and political. Thousands of those who fought there were ignored or actually taunted and mistreated when they returned.
Today, whatever the American public’s divided views on the necessity of the recent or current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has embraced and honored both the professional and citizen soldiers, men and women, who have fought in it.
Denny’s return to America was quiet and solemn. But in all of the years that I have spent in journalism, it is a day impossible for me to forget, more than 45 years later.
He had fought in many of the big engagements of the war in Viet Nam, once wounded by shrapnel. He had confided to a friend in Hanska that “ I just hope we are fighting for something worthwhile.” But his letters home rarely bore a trace of self-sympathy. He was a good Marine, recognized by his superiors when they promoted him to corporal.
Not long after, two Marine officers appeared at the home of his sister with the news that her brother, Denny, had been killed by an explosive device at Quang Tri. To spare his ailing father the initial shock, he had asked the Marines to inform his sister first in the event of his death.
On a radiant September morning in 1966, the day of his funeral, I drove to the little Scandinavian town where he grew up. I then wrote for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Hours before the service I visited with his father, Elmer Wellmann, who had been out on the farm, in his work clothes, assisting his other sons and a son-in-law with chores. “The war is so far away,” he said. “It’s hard to understand. But I think it’s right that we are there. I had four other boys; all were in the service. I would hate to think Denny died in a useless war. And I don’t.”
They held the memorial service in a lovely white church on a hilltop. Dirt farmers with big, reddened hands, and their families, bowed their heads and wept. Mourners filled the tiny church and the adjacent service rooms. When there were no seats left, the late-comers gathered in the churchyard and sang hymns. The minister’s eulogy was thoughtful. Instead attempting to understand the big questions of why wars, why hatred and violence and hunger for power, he asked the mourners instead to focus on the brief life of Denny Wellman. “We recall the young man with the winning smile, the disarming personality and his potential, all beginning to become clear.”
The manager of the store in New Ulm, where Dennis had worked , remembered the young man’s last words before leaving for Viet Nam: “I just hope I don’t change too much by the time I come home.”
He came home as Denny Wellman , a Minnesota farm boy who in the ultimate test of his life fought without flinching , an American soldier and a credit to the best there is in this country. When the church service ended a Marine sergeant took the folded flag and tenderly placed it in the hands of Denny’s mother. He saluted, for all of us.
City of Shoreview and Ecumen Hosting Age Friendly Community Workshop
Is Minnesota a great place to grow old? (Share your thoughts here).
Most communities weren’t built with aging in mind. It wasn’t necessary—there were few elderly persons. But with medical advances in technology and the aging of the baby boom generation, the elderly and the old-elderly (85+) will become a major segment of the population in most communities.
Key Questions:
What does it mean for a community to have large numbers of elderly? What needs to change? Does it need to change? What innovation opportunities are there? How do the elderly experience life differently from working age persons? From children? How can communities support their older residents while continuing to support and accommodate those of all ages? Do we share any responsibilities as a community to those who are older? What does it mean for a city to be “age-friendly?”
What:
The City of Shoreview and Ecumen are convening more than 60 community members in an intergenerational workshop to discuss many of the questions above. It will hold great information for all Twin Cities communities on a new reality that impacts every area of life – Aging.
Where and When:
Thursday, October 25, 6 p.m. to 8:15 p.m.
Community Room, Shoreview Community Center
4580 Victoria Street North Space is limited. RSVP by Friday, October 19th by calling Tessia Melvin at 651.490.4613 or emailing her at tmelvin@shoreviewmn.gov
What tops your bucket list?
Young and old alike have dreams of adventures around the world, people we’d like to meet and extraordinary challenges we’d like to tackle. More and more, seniors are using their golden years to cross items off their bucket list – and in the process they’re Changing Aging.
Share your bucket list at staging-ecumenv2.kinsta.cloud/mpr. The link will take you to a special web page to share your answer there or via Facebook and Twitter. (You don’t need a Facebook or Twitter account to participate.)
Beginning to Look at Long-Term Care Financing Differently - Own Your Future Campaign Launched in Minnesota
Ecumen CEO Kathryn Roberts participated this week in a press conference with Minnesota Lt. Governor Yvonne Prettner Solon, Human Services Commissioner Lucinda Jesson and other Minnesotans seeking a new future for long-term care financing in Minnesota. At the press conference an Own Your Future campaign was launched.
Phase I is a statewide public education campaign on the need to plan for long-term care. This then leads into Phase II, which is critically important, developing new ways to finance long-term care. Fewer than10% of adult Minnesotans purchase private long-term care insurance.
The key is to look at an array of possibilities from private insurance, the CLASS Act, HSAs, making Medicaid a co-insurance for long-term care and others to develop ways that help people's economic security and preserve a safety net for people in poverty. You can read more about Own Your Future and Phase II and Phase III in this Star Tribune editorial. You can also visit the Own Your Future website. Kathryn's remarks from the press conference are below:
Good Morning,
I first want to thank Governor Dayton, Lt. Governor Prettner Solon and Commissioner Jesson for their leadership in beginning to educate Minnesotans on the very important issue of aging and financial security.
Our new old age demands innovation and new solutions. We’re living longer than ever. Until the 1970s, the phrase “Alzheimer’s” was largely isolated to medical journals. Today, nearly 100,000 Minnesotans have it, with thousands of more cases to come.
At Ecumen, we have nearly 4,000 employees who provide senior housing and services across Minnesota. They’ve heard me speak many times about the need for new ways to pay for care. Medicaid as a default long-term care insurance policy isn’t viable. And Own Your Future helps us raise that issue.
The issue of aging and financial security impacts everyone, especially businesses. I’m sure there are people here today who have missed work to bring a loved one to the doctor or to provide care. For many, it’s a brutal juggling act. According to national Gallup research, family caregivers of seniors miss work 126 million days a year at a productivity loss of just over $25 billion.
Today’s new old age holds tremendous opportunity to build on the steps taken today and create new ways to help Minnesotans take ownership of their future while preserving a safety net for those who cannot escape poverty.
The Citizens League has introduced a number of good ideas, such as seeking a waiver to pilot Medicaid as a co-insurance that could work with private insurance or other vehicles. Another idea is creating a state-backed home equity product that would safely allow people to access their home equity for Alzheimer’s and other care needs. We need to explore these and other ideas to improve Minnesotans’ lives and their financial security.
In closing, I thank the leaders here today for creating this first step. It’s a step that opens the door to further collaboration to build a better future for Minnesotans. Our new old age holds tremendous innovation opportunity. And we have to walk through that door together to seize it.
Jim Klobuchar - A Sherpa's Last Day in His Mountains
By Ecumen contributor Jim Klobuchar
The news told of an unseemly traffic jam of climbers on the snow cliffs below the summit of Mt. Everest in the Himalayas of Nepal. High winds threatened to launch avalanches at more than 28,000 feet and stopped the advances of hundreds of climbers strung out for miles on the mountain’s snow ridges.
The news was that never in documented history of Everest climbing had so many climbers been packed together, so high, to the point of burlesque; a way that seemed to make a caricature of the ideal of mountain climbing.
There was no mention in the international press a few weeks earlier of the death of a Sherpa guide and porter named Dawa. This was no particular dereliction by the news industry. Hundreds of Sherpas earn their livelihood, often at risk as guides or load carriers on climbing expeditions; or as trail aids on trekking or hiking expeditions, where they are charged with insuring that less experienced hikers will not interrupt their Himalayan ideal by walking off a cliff.
Dawa died of a stroke while fixing rope protection for a climbing team not from the summit. I’d met him in the years when I organized treks in the Himalaya, but the tears that came with the news for me were for his father, who once told me in his struggling English that we would be forever brothers.
We have trekked together for more than 20 years, in the Solu Khumbu of the Everest district and in the great Annapurna Range It is impossible to do that without bonding, in ways that seem immune to time and distance, with those with whom you share the trail or with the faces of the villagers, their struggles and their smiles. I met Lhakpa in Pokhara beneath the Annapurnas. That part of Nepal, primarily Hindu, is not native land for the Buddhist Sherpas, who live in shadow of Everest miles away. But he was the sirdar or trail leader of the guiding group assigned to our trek. He was old school, not nearly well acquainted with English as the younger guides, but his bronze smile erased all of the linguistic differences. We became friends. He told about his family, one of the sons already a Buddhist monk, about his son Dorje, who would one day make his 15th ascent of Everest, first as a Sherpa load carrier and later as a trusted leader to the summit, first on the rope.
You can’t walk in his mountains, the Himalayas, without being lit not by their immensity but by the history and mystery of them and sometimes the heartbreak. On that hike in the Annapurnas, we found ourselves on an odyssey of sights and sensations, through the shifting cultures of the villages, where life is harsh but not so harsh that it denies the traveler the traditional greeting of “Namaste (nah-ma-stay) which in its most lyrical translation means “I praise the god that lives within you.” Within you, within me. And on the trail you were aware of the caravans of mules whose presence was announced by the sonorous music of their bells filling the mountainscape; and then around the bend in the trail came the lead mule wearing a stately plume of crimson and white. Unreal? No. This is the Himalaya.
And so Lhakpa was leading us now through darkening forests of Himalayan oaks and sycamores, threaded by hanging moss and secret moans. The atmospherics might have been threatening to some in our group; they reminded you of the scenes in the old Snow White film fantasy. But there was no danger here for the romanticists among us. There was no wicked queen in this forest. Annapurna ruled here, the goddess of the harvest in the villagers lore. Ahead the scenes were startling. Waterfalls laced their way hundreds of feet down the forested ravines. Much of this time Lhakpa was quietly threading his prayer beads as he walked, unobtrusively reciting “ Ohm mani padme hum” with each turn of the beads, a prayer to his deities.
And that is how we got acquainted. In the years ahead I sometimes joined him, a little mischievously, in the recital of the beads. He smiled broadly at all of this, understanding that there was no mockery here but rather a light-hearted bonding-–his prayers and mine. I met his family, his wife, the monk, and Dorje and other family members. Dawa, who died on Everest, had to be alike. They built a small tourist lodge in their mountain village of Phortse at 13,000 feet, with a grand view of the of the mountainscape that seemed to stretch forever.
I have been to the Himalayas some 20 times now, almost all of them traveling with friends to elevations at 18,000 feet and beyond. There is no scene like it on earth. I can’t honestly say whether I will travel there again. But if so, Lhakpa will be my first destination, because I owe him one more gift.
On my last visit to our overnight in the trading village of Namche Bazaar, Lhakpa got wind from my trekking bunch that it was my birthday. His friend, the cook Yeltsen, agitated for a birthday cake. I wasn’t supposed to know about it. But Lhakpa was in a fix.
“Jeem,” he said, “how do we get 83 candles on a cake.
I was terrified at the prospect. “Lhakpa,” I said, “I know you are very smart and will figure out a way.”
Three hours later at our dinner in the dining tent he brought a cake with one giant numeral 1 in the middle.
The choral singers in my group weren’t so kind.
About Jim Klobuchar:
In 45 years of daily journalism, Jim Klobuchar’s coverage ranged from presidential campaigns to a trash collector’s ball. He has written from the floor of a tent in the middle of Alaska, from helicopters, from the Alps and from the edge of a sand trap. He was invited to lunch by royalty and to a fist fight by the late Minnesota Viking football coach, Norm Van Brocklin. He wrote a popular column for the Minneapolis Star Tribune for 30 years and has authored 23 books. Retiring as a columnist in 1996, he contributes to Ecumen’s “Changing Aging” blog, MinnPost.com and the Christian Science Monitor. He also leads trips around the world and an annual bike trip across Northern Minnesota. He’s climbed the Matterhorn in the Alps 8 times and has ridden his bike around Lake Superior. He’s also the proud father of two daughters, including Minnesota's senior U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar.
Big Heart, Miniature Talent -- Ecumen North Branch Resident Creates Small Worlds
From East Central Minnesota Post Review
Man sees, man imagines, man creates
By Jon Tatting on September 19, 2012 at 11:16 am
When 80-year-old Jean Parson sees a piece of cardboard, a popsicle stick, a paper clip or even a pop can, he can envision great detail in making anything from antique tractors to baby grand pianos — treasures that fit right in your hand.
His talent first surfaced when, barely a 10-year-old, he made what seemed like countless toy tractors by hand for two younger brothers while growing up on the family farm some miles north of Braham. Into his teenage years, Parson refined his craft, especially during the time when he couldn’t get out of bed due to rheumatic fever. 
Parson used pieces of cardboard, popsicle sticks and other simple materials to construct these two pianos for relatives who love music.
And Parson’s hobby continues to keep him busy today, as evident by his growing collection of model farm equipment and buildings inside his room at Ecumen senior housing in North Branch.
“I’m not done growing up yet,” smiled Parson while holding his newest creation, a baby grand piano made of cardboard and other everyday materials concealed by a coat of black paint. “See the little bench there? It’s like the one Victor Borge used.”
His eye for detail can also be found in his model bobsled complete with hitch for a horse. A wooden piece whittled by Parson’s pocketknife, it was the first model he made at Ecumen.
“The tough part was getting it to steer, so I used popsicle sticks,” he described. “My dad plowed snow with something like this.”
Many of Parson’s creations are likenesses of what he remembers on the farm or community where he grew up. There’s the side delivery rake, combine, hay loader, Ford tractor, seed planter and a barn that underwent an expansion project. Other creations simply come from his imagination.
No stranger to humor, he says his family lived between the “northern twin cities” – that is, Brunswick and Grasston, nearly 20 miles north of Cambridge. “I was born farther south than that, though, in a house just west of Braham,” said Parson, born in 1932. Following World War II, Parson recalls the cast iron toy trucks that his cousins played with during family visits in Iowa. Built to last, the toys did have a weakness, however, as the wheels wouldn’t stay on after a week of playing.
So Parson, who was not even 10 years old, started making his own toy trucks and tractors for his younger brothers. And he got pretty good at whittling away on wood from apple boxes and peach crates with his trusty pocketknife. “I made a new tractor a week because they were always wrecking them,” said Parson, who didn’t mind the job for his brothers. “I’d make them to midnight.”
Later in life, he created a hand-sized organ — like the one his family used to have — and a roll top desk with the roll part made of cardboard so it can move up and down like the real thing. From bottle caps to more popsicle sticks, he uses what’s available.
Parson finds great reward in sharing his hobby with family, including wife Lois, son Mike and daughters Sheryl and Kia. And they and relatives appreciate his work in return. He’s obliged requests to create things such as model pianos, with all the correct detail of course, for those with musical interests.
Yet there is one particular creation that Parson won’t part from: a model of his father’s 1935 Allis Chalmers WC tractor, complete with cultivator, which he put together and painted orange 64 years ago. “It’s the first one I decided to make to keep,” he admitted.
A resourceful craftsman, Parson is perhaps more of an artist whose handiwork has been described as “touching, fascinating, special, personal, simple yet beautiful“ to friends and family including his nephew Gaylen Bicking of Rice, Minn.
For Bicking, he appreciates his uncle‘s ability to take the ordinary and make it extraordinary by using everyday materials. “You don’t see those people any more,“ he said of the natural craftsman. ‘It’s hard to put into words.”
What he can put into words, however, are the fond memories he has of being a South St. Paul boy visiting uncle Jean’s place in the country where there were two farms: a real one where uncle mentored nephew and a miniature version in the attic where imagination was met with imagination.
“I would wonder, ‘what tractor should I use to pull this plow,’” recalled Bicking of how his boyhood self played with his uncle’s models during summer visits on the farm. “I was a city slicker and a farm boy both. It was the best of both worlds.”
What surprises you most about growing older?
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We celebrate birthday milestones with parties, funny cards and (mostly) good humor. As we’ve grown older, life has changed at every stage.
This week’s question for our Minnesota Public Radio and social media campaign is:
What surprises you most about growing older?
The link above will take you to a special web page to share your answer at staging-ecumenv2.kinsta.cloud/mpr or via Facebook and Twitter. (You don’t need a Facebook or Twitter account to participate, just click on the appropriate tab.)
The Changing Aging conversation is important not only to Ecumen; but also to our families and friends. The questions are ageless – we’re all growing older. Please share our weekly questions with the important people in your life so that together we can change the stigma of aging.
Thank you to all who participated in last week's question! A long list of family and friends received the most recognition for "aging in style" last week. We at Ecumen wholeheartedly agree!
How would YOU answer this question?
Today, Ecumen launched its first-ever social media campaign aimed at elevating the conversation around Changing Aging. Our goal is to get people thinking and talking about aging, perhaps even preparing themselves or loved ones for living fully in later years.