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We’re about to start our panel onCelebrating Impact, the final phase of community engagement.
Together with our panelists, we will offer insights on how to demonstrate and communicate success with real results.
Enjoy the video and then we’ll get to hear more about this in our next discussion.
SHAUNA SHEPHERD: The City of Fort Worth focused on financial empowerment, teaching savings, budget and credit.
And the knowledge shared from our older volunteers will teach them what to do and what not to do.
We needed to reach the immediate needs of a community.
KIMBERLY BRADEN:The biggest thing was to say: Okay now, what will we do?
And that sense of community they can bring to the broader community.
Why do they call it that?
Because with older adults, experience matters!
RODNEY HARRELL: Thanks, Mike.
A great panel and I’m excited to talk to you all today.
But first before we get into things we have another question using Slido.
But clearly volunteering is by far the biggest so far.
We’re seeing a lot of other good things there.
Knowledge popping up, as well.
Wonderful, wonderful examples here.
A lot of issues in the community that can be helped, I see popping up, as well.
Serving on councils, leadership roles, many interesting items there, as well.
I’m curious what our panelists are thinking here.
We’ll start with Dionne.
What do you see there?
Any reactions to what folks are putting in there?
DIONNE BAUX: Absolutely!
These are our entrepreneurs that are developing businesses among our corridors.
Andy do you see anything there that stuck out to you?
We still believe that they are assets in the community, and we want them to participate.
RODNEY HARRELL:I love seeing that history element in there.
And Beth, what did you see there?
BETH BLAUER:Well I loved all of the knowledge and experience.
RODNEY HARRELL:Absolutely.
BETH BLAUER:Sure.
You got to see a highlight of one of my most exciting and favorite projects that we do.
I want to just kind of bring that to life a little bit.
They identified a problem that was focused on debt.
Over 50 percent of Fort Worth residents have debt that’s over 60 days past due.
Another 40 percent of residents have low credit scores.
We had 14 participants in Fort Worth that opened a new bank account and saved over $200.
All of this was matched by the city.
It’s a really excellent example of the way we can leverage some of that knowledge.
We have several other great examples of this work.
Overall, the five grantee cities engaged around 377 volunteers, 93 percent of them were 50-plus volunteers.
It really comes to play here, with all the volunteers helping out in those city examples.
Thank you for sharing that.
You created a multi-generational gathering spot where older community members could share stories, and stories are so important.
Lots of great examples there.
My question for you is: Why the focus on elders?
And what have you gained from that approach of focusing on that population?
The plan is called Making Room for Everyone and that’s what a park should be.
It shouldn’t be just for some people.
We need benches that are in the shade!
We need more benches for people to sit!
And restrooms in the park that became the number one thing that people wanted.
Certainly, that was something the elders help to push forward.
The community is about one-third Asian, so elders have a tradition of being respected.
The Elder Story Cafe was a great example of people telling stories about how it was.
And I just want to mention real quickly that we have a couple of great people.
That’s a way for families to live intergenerationally and be connected and age in place.
RODNEY HARRELL:That’s great.
I think that’s really exciting and great work.
So thank you for sharing that.
I’ll turn now to Dionne, who mentioned the business community was missing earlier.
As you know, older adults are an economic force.
And the over 50 crowd is controlling nearly 80 percent of the U.S. net worth at present.
Main Street America works to build vibrant commercial districts.
So Im curious about how have you engaged older residents in commercial district revitalization projects.
Can those strategies be used to support economic recovery from COVID-19 that we’re all facing now?
And other kinds of issues?
DIONNE BAUX: Great question, Rodney.
To build on something Andy just noted, we believe our main streets are for everyone.
This is their district.
You’re speaking of yourself.
They’re the largest consumer base, they’re responsible for half of the U.S. consumer spending.
And then, finally, I mentioned this group is our new entrepreneurs.
We’re seeing their input in neighborhood commercial district programming.
I’ll provide an example in Chicago, from the greater Chatham neighborhood.
Parklets provided some of the basics that Andy just noted.
It offered increased options, seating and places for folks to rest.
It expanded opportunities for social gathering and community cohesion and community pride.
Main Street is back.
Local businesses are locating on our main streets.
RODNEY HARRELL:Indeed, they are.
It’s a great talk about the benefits of including older adults and engaging older residents.
We’ve talked about that a lot over the past two days.
How can we change the predominant mindset to be more inclusive?
And what are the unique contributions of older adults and impacts of their engagement to celebrate?
ANDY TOY:There’s a couple thoughts I have about that.
If thats lost, it’s a real loss for the community.
One of the things we did was a food truck a nonprofit food truck called Sophie South Philly East.
They become isolated and that can be very detrimental health-wise mental health and physical health.
At the very beginning of the pandemic we were having weekly meetings of our elders.
We’re hoping to get back or they are hoping to get back to in-person sometime.
It’s a real loss to the community when you don’t have those connections.
RODNEY HARRELL:It certainly can be.
Isolation so tough one.
Beth, do you have any thoughts here?
BETH BLAUER:Fostering that intergenerational knowledge transfer is so important at the community level and within the workforce.
I want to see to it that we emphasize that point.
When we don’t do that, we end up with these issues of isolation.
RODNEY HARRELL:Its crucial to capture all groups within a community.
Dionne, do you have any thoughts to close us out on this question?
But remember, this is a vibrant group.
A 50-year-old looks a lot different than the 50-year-old in the past, right?
So these folks are still working, theyre a part of the workforce.
Some have more capital to be able to invest back into the communities.
Some have more time since their children are either away at college or they’re empty nesters now.
They have the time to commit to volunteer on these community revitalization efforts and city planning.
It’s such a large segment of our population that will continue to grow.
But isolation definitely is a piece of all of this and we don’t want that to happen.
RODNEY HARRELL:Certainly, change is needed there.
Im going to start with Beth.
What do you think?
BETH BLAUER:Okay, one minute, here we go.
Intentionally engage older residents and other impacted groups early in that program and service design.
And continue that engagement into implementation and obviously any volunteer work that may be available.
So not just on the workforce side, but also on volunteerism.
RODNEY HARRELL:Thats a great one.
Okay, Dionne, what do you think we should be doing differently after this panel?
DIONNE BAUX:That’s hard in one minute.
Beth hit all of the points right.
But I will say, it needs a community planning process.
So tapping into their wisdom and their knowledge is vitally important for the success of all of these programs.
RODNEY HARRELL:Certainly don’t want to lose that knowledge of volunteerism.
Close us out on this, Andy.
What do you think?
We’ve had our elders doing really amazing artwork, actually.
It’s a great thing.
RODNEY HARRELL:I think that’s a great note to end on from my questions.
I thank you all for answering those.
I want to bring Mike back in with us to help us with some questions from the audience.
MIKE WATSON:Thanks, Rodney.
And thanks to all of you.
It is your time to ask questions of our panelists.
So I’m going to go ahead and start here.
Andy, you mentioned creative approaches, and this question is right in that line.
ANDY TOY:Always have food available, for one.
I don’t know if they’re untraditional, but we’ve had art shows.
We’ve had folks creating batik or other kinds of artwork painting.
I think that would spark a really great conversation.
MIKE WATSON:Thats great.
Thank you, Andy.
Dionne, do you have anything to add to that?
DIONNE BAUX:Ditto everything Andy just noted here.
I really liked the intergenerational photo campaign.
It’s generally the volunteers, and the different types of community partners that we work with.
MIKE WATSON:So another great response.
Beth, do you have anything to add?
And then look at those measures, habitualize the use of saying, Is this working?
Are we having the desired impact?
Are we actually thinking about this in the right way?
Continue to build the muscle within the programs themselves to hold themselves accountable.
MIKE WATSON:Fantastic answers from all three of you.
We’re running short on time!
I want to talk about this one: Volunteerism and entrepreneurship for economic empowerment must coexist.
Volunteerism has profound limitations if it is divorced from teaching a person to fish.
So,that’s less of a question and more of a comment.
So imagine the way we know that knowledge transfers in social media and in other places.
DIONNE BAUX:I would say the Main Street approach.
There are entrepreneurs there.
How do you get them involved?
ANDY TOY:Yeah, a quick note.
you’re able to have volunteers doing cleanups on commercial corridors, which we’ve had.
So it’s not one or the other, it’s both.
MIKE WATSON:Love that.
When impact is less tangible, how do you measure it and integrate it into your storytelling?
I encourage everyone to sort of seek those out.
But really looking at what already exists out there.
Don’t take a stab at recreate the wheel yourself.
Look at places like the OECD.
Look at places like the Sustainable Global Development Goals.
MIKE WATSON:That’s great advice.
Always better to steal an idea or steal a framework and have to recreate it yourself.
Andy, let’s go to you next.
ANDY TOY:A simple measurement of impact would be, “How many people are using the park?
How many elders are using the park?”
We’re hoping to see, in a few years, that there’s an improvement in that.
If there isn’t, then maybe we weren’t doing our job.
Their voice is being heard.
DIONNE BAUX:I will build on what Andy said about building trust.
It is so important that we spend time doing that.
Projects that they developed and actually implemented together.
All of the resources that have been shared are fantastic.
MIKE WATSON:Again, three great responses.
This has been such a fantastic panel.
I want to thank you all for joining us.
Rodney, Beth, Andy and Dionne, this was fantastic.
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2021 AARP Livable Communities Engagement Workshop
Page published October 2021
