Senior News August, 2004 Vol. 25. No. 8

 

Published by the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in Eureka, California. HSRC is a non-profit community-based organization offering services for senior citizens, multi-generational families and caregivers.

Kathleen Kistler has learned to wait and hear her inner voice

Sign up for the Over-60 Program at HSU

Nero burned while Rome fiddled

Sandi Fitzpatrick to head California Commission on Aging

Berg to unveil an aging master plan

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Baby boomers
Berg to unveil an aging master plan

California Assemblywoman Patty Berg, chair of the Assembly Committee on Aging and Long-Term Care, will unveil her Aging Master Plan in a special public session at 10:30 a.m. Aug. 13 at the North Coast Inn, 4975 Valley West Blvd., Arcata. The session will discuss how California should be preparing for the aging baby boomers.

"California is fortunate that Assemblywoman Berg has chosen to focus attention on the impending demographic tidal wave that is fast approaching," said Sandi Fitzpatrick, AAA executive director. "We appreciate Patty's willingness to unveil her Aging Master Plan right here on the north coast."

Berg has assembled three committees to assist in the development of a master plan on aging. Together the efforts of the three committees will culminate in a product that can be used to shaping aging policy across California.

The information session is being sponsored by the Area 1 Agency on Aging (AAA) Advisory Council and Northcoast Senior Services Collaborative.

Prior to her election to the state assembly, Berg was the founding director of the Area Agency on Aging serving Del Norte and Humboldt counties.

New report
Boomers' volunteerism

A report, "Reinventing Aging: Baby Boomers and Civic Engagement," was released in June by the Harvard School of Public Health. In seven years, the oldest of the baby boomers will turn 65, and can expect to live to age 83. Many will live into their 90s. The extra years - unique in human history - can be said to constitute a new stage of life. The question boomers will face is, "what will I do with the rest of my life?" Boomers have the potential to become a social resource of immense proportions by actively participating in the life of their communities. But will they participate?

The report shows that compared to their parents' generation, boomers have done less by every measure of civic engagement, including rates of voting and joining community groups. Given this fact, the Harvard/Met-Life report examines whether a national effort will succeed in mobilizing large numbers of them to address community problems, whether organizations will be prepared to receive them and what roles the media can play in helping society redefine the meaning and purpose of older years.

- www.hsph.harvard.edu/chc