Our Blog Archives - Page 98 of 213

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“Smile” on Ecumen When You Shop on Amazon

Amazon.com now offers a simple way to support your favorite charitable organization every time you shop — at no cost to you.

When you shop at smile.amazon.com, Amazon automatically donates 0.5% of the price of your eligible AmazonSmile purchases to the charitable organization of your choice.

Most all Amazon products are eligible for donations, and all IRS-register charitable organizations qualify for contributions.

We hope you will “smile” on your favorite charitable organization. And we hope that’s Ecumen.

See AmazonSmile’s FAQ for more details and this USA Today story about the new program.

by origineight

Ecumen Joining City of Apple Valley In Design Workshop Focused on Making Aging Advantageous to Cities

How does a city actually become “age friendly” to create competitive advantage amidst unprecedented demographic change?

Answers will come in a unique three-day work workshop September 30th to October 2nd in Apple Valley, Minnesota, which like most American communities is grappling with these very questions as their populations grow older in record numbers. Local, national and global experts from diverse sectors will create a roadmap for Apple Valley and cities globally that desire to turn “Age Friendly Community” from a phrase into a reality.

The workshop will be convened by Vitalocity! – a new consultancy founded by a group involving Ecumen , Kendal Corporation a Pennsylvania-based senior services nonprofit company, and BusinessLab, a UK-based global strategy consultancy. From September 30 through October 2, these founding partners will be joined by Apple Valley residents and community leaders along with representatives from global organizations such as the International Federation on Ageing, a World Health Organization (WHO) partner; Perkins Eastman, an international architectural and design firm; Sodexo, which provides nutritional and other quality of life services to more than 75 million consumers worldwide and global technology company, IBM.

The Problem: Our Cities Aren’t Designed for Aging

In today’s cities, if you’re not spry and mobile, you’re largely out of luck. This isolates people, limits their contributions to a city’s social and economic vitality, and can have significant health impacts.

Exploring this phenomenon in depth, WHO created the WHO Age Friendly City Framework, which provides eight characteristics (below) necessary for an age friendly city. The Framework is a critically important step in creating cities for all ages and stages, and more than 250 cities have subscribed to its tenets. But no entity exists globally that cities can turn to for cohesive planning and technical advice to turn the Framework into results.

Vitalocity! seeks to change that by bringing diverse skills and expertise together to help cities deliver phased, measurable, quantifiable results based on the eight components (below) of the WHO’s Age Friendly City Framework:

Respect and social inclusion
Outdoor spaces and buildings
Transportation
Communications and information
Social participation
Housing
Community support and health
Civic participation and employment

Our Cities’ Changing Population Driving Age-Friendly Strategy

For the first time in history, more than half of the human population - 3.3 billion people - live in cities. By 2030, this is expected to swell to almost 5 billion. And this population is getting older. For example, in the last 10 years, in every one of America’s 51 largest major metropolitan areas, the number of children relative to the number of elderly has declined. In Pittsburgh, which is America’s oldest city demographically, almost 25% of the metro area’s population is over 60.

Locations long considered magnets for the young and hip are also aging rapidly. In Manhattan and San Francisco, almost 20% of the population is over 60, well above the national average.

According to a new report by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies and AARP, in 1990, less than 5 percent of U.S. counties had a population where adults over 50 made up more than 40 percent of the community (that was 156 counties). By 2010, this was true of 33 percent of all U.S. counties (or 1,031 of them). The U.S. population over age 65 is expected to include 73 million people by 2030 (that's about 33 million more than today).

And most of these people live in metropolitan areas, particularly suburbs, making Apple Valley an ideal location to launch this important work and turn age friendly design in our world from concept to reality.

by origineight

Adeline Carlson, a Gold Star Mother Living at Ecumen Detroit Lakes, Remembers That Day — Always

Gold Star Mother Adeline Carlson, a resident of Ecumen Detroit Lakes, remembers that Sunday morning 46 years ago when a serviceman came to her door to tell her that her son Donald had died in the line of duty.

by origineight

Honoring the Rich Tradition of Volunteerism at Ecumen Parmly LifePointes

Dedicated volunteers by the hundreds routinely help out at Ecumen Parmly LifePointes in Chisago City, Minn., and last week the community honored them for their service with a lunch and award ceremony.

“The special people you care for can’t always thank you themselves, so as an organization, we’d like to say ‘Thank you’ for all you do!” said Mara Krinke, community outreach coordinator, in greeting the luncheon guests.

Ecumen Parmly LifePointes has about 350 active volunteers who have given more than 9,700 hours of service in the past year.

“Parmly’s rich history of 110 years can’t be talked about without mentioning the many contributions of volunteers,” said Executive Director Frank Robinson. “Your dedication and gift of time is critical to making a difference in so many lives and supporting our mission of ‘creating home for older adults, wherever they choose to live.’”

The top award is the Phyllis Lindquist Volunteer of the Year Award, named for an outstanding volunteer and later resident who gave her time for 55 years and was the first Volunteer of the Year. This year the award was given to four individuals: Jane Iverson, Virgi Johnson, Faye VanHorn and Jacob Frischmon.

Also, service awards were given from the President’s National Council of Service and Civic Participation, established in 2003 as a way to recognize the valuable contributions of volunteers and to encourage more people to serve. Recipients received a service pin, a personalized certificate of appreciation and a letter from President Obama.

Lifetime Achievement service awards went to Karen Gustafson and Faye VanHorn for giving 4,000 or more hours in a lifetime.

Gold Award winners for 500 or more hours of service in a year were Jacob Frischmon, George Pokorny Sr., and Carmen Ihlenfeldt.

Silver Award winners for 250-499 hours were Richard Carlson, Anne Henzlik, Elaine Schumacher and Greg Whitney.

Bronze Award Winners for 100 to 249 hours were Faith Boston, Bob Butte, Nancy Butte, Gail Gaustad, Heidi Gieske, Jeanne Hajnasiewicz, Richard Helgreson, Eileen Hoffman, Jane Iverson, Shirley ‘Sunshine’ Mollan, Joan Peterson, Chuck Roberts, JoAnne Robertson, Harriet Ryberg, Roman Seidel and Donna Spreitzer.

Volunteer of the Year Winners (left to right) Jane Iverson, Vergi Johnson, Faye VanHorn, Jacob Frischmon

by origineight

Ecumen Century Club: Honoring the Always Positive Pearl Nelson, 103

Pearl Shoquist Nelson, a resident at Ecumen Parmly LifePointes in Chicago City, turns 103 today. She might celebrate a little, but mostly it will be like any other day. You can bet she will be busy all day. She will do her word games and write in her journal. She will read her daily devotional. She will exercise. She might crochet. And she will surely take time to be thankful.

“There’s always something good,” says Pearl.

Her friend Pat Achman sums Pearl up this way: “She’s never cranky. She’s always steady. She never says anything negative about people. Never a cross word.”

And consequently, Pearl has many friends, which is fortunate because she has no family. She was orphaned when she was eight years old and had no siblings. She married Elmer Nelson when she was 23, and he died when she was 71— 32 years ago. They had no children. But she does not dwell on the absence of family.

“The Lord made up for that,” Pearl says. “There have been so many wonderful people in my life who have been so good to me. I’ve had a good life. I’ve made the best of it.”

Pearl is a devout Lutheran. About the only time she turns on her television is on Sunday morning, when she faithfully watches evangelist Charles Stanley, who happens to be a Baptist. “I like him,” Pearl says with a wry smile, “because I can hear him.”

Pearl was born in Clinton, Minn., and grew up near Shafer, Minn. She was raised by her maternal grandparents. When she finished the eighth grade, she had to go to work — at first doing “odds and ends.” Later she got a job as a telephone operator first in Center City, then in Lindstrom. That job went away when the telephone company converted to the dial system, and she moved on to a job at the Lindstrom hospital, working in the central supply department.

When she stopped working, she started volunteering — at the hospital where she used to work and at Ecumen Parmly LifePointes, when Elmer’s mother lived there. In addition to being a selfless volunteer over the years, she also is a generous donor to Ecumen Parmly LifePointes, designating her regular donations to the memory care community.

“Pearl’s generous gifts over the years have made a huge difference in improving the quality of care at Parmly,” says Ecumen Development Director Amy Williams. “She is a very caring person who is committed to helping others.”

Pearl says she’s not sure about the secret of her longevity. Clearly, she points out, it’s not genetic. “Maybe it’s that I didn’t drink, and I didn’t smoke — never,” she says. “But I don’t know if that has anything to do with it.”

Or maybe it has something to do with finding the good in everything and caring deeply about the welfare of other people. Whatever it is, Ecumen honors you, Pearl Nelson. Happy 103rd birthday!

by origineight

Ecumen’s Paul Libbon Named To Aging Services of Minnesota Board

Ecumen Regional Director Paul Libbon has been named to the Aging Services of Minnesota Board of Directors as a director at large for a three-year term.

Aging Services of Minnesota is the state’s largest association of organizations serving Minnesota seniors, encompassing more than 1,000 member organizations statewide. Aging Service’s mission is to create the future of older adult services through excellence and innovation.

“I am deeply honored to serve on the Aging Services of Minnesota Board of Directors,” Libbon said. “I believe we stand at a crossroads and that our success lies in the leadership we cultivate throughout the network of older adult services providers. I look forward to the opportunity to help advance our field to most effectively serve older adults in the places they call home.”

At Ecumen, Libbon oversees the operations of care centers, senior housing and assisted living at eight communities throughout Minnesota. He has held a variety of leadership positions at Ecumen, including campus administrator for Ecumen Lakeshore in Duluth. Libbon also has served as a mentor in Velocity, Ecumen’s employee leadership development program.

He is a graduate of the University of Minnesota-Morris, where he was a standout athlete in basketball.

by origineight