The first ever Engaging Elders: Connecting Children, Campus and Community event covered a variety of topics relavent to seniors. A number of senior citizens attended the inaugural event on Wednesday in the newly remodeled Bromfield Library on The Ohio State University at Mansfield campus (OSU-M).
Renee Thompson, family engagement and outreach coordinator at OSU-M, said this event came about from a conversation with the Area Agency on Aging (AAA) District 5 Chief Executive Officer, Duana Patton, and their passion for working with elders.
“We believe they should be respected and need to be affirmed,” she said. “We got together with some of our community partners…and said we should have an annual event that really says to our elders and to our community that you’re important to us, that you have contributed to our community and you have left a legacy.”
In addition to OSU-M and the AAA, partners for the event include the North End Community Improvement Collaborative (NECIC) and Richland County Children Services (RCCS).
The agenda included Richland county history, public policy: making a difference, sexuality later in life and online engagement.
“We felt like our history is really important … so that we realize how we arrived where we are and how does history fit into the context of the quality of our lives,” said Deanna West-Torrence, NECIC executive director.
Boyd Addlesperger, local history/genealogy librarian at the Mansfield/Richland county Public Library (MRCPL), compiled a slide show of black-and-white photos of old Mansfield. Tony Chinni, community development coordinator for NECIC, talked about his organizations effort to preserve the history of Mansfield’s north end.
“One of the assets of any community is the stories and legacies of the history, so to speak,” Chinni said. NECIC has started a program called the North End oral history project, where they have interviewed elders over age 60, and compiled videos with old photos and put them on a DVD. Chinni said this project is in collaboration with the MRCPL and the Cleveland Memory Project.
Former Mansfield Mayor Lydia Reid addressed the crowd about the importance of connecting with state senators and representatives – in addition to voting.
“As a local group, we can be active about what happens to us,” Reid said. “We as seniors have the power if we will use it. We need to do more than go out and vote.”
Terri Fisher, professor of Psychology and assistant dean at OSU-M, talked about sexuality “after 50.”
“The topic that draws out the most groans and embarrassed faces is when we talk about sexuality later in life,” she said. “There is this general idea among those who are not later in life that sexuality stops at some point; that sexuality is simply for the young.”
There is no expiration date on being a sexual person, Fisher said. Many people who are healthy and in a satisfactory relationship remain sexually active well in to their 70s and 80s.
Richland Source Publisher Jay Allred then explained the different social and online Medias. He described to attendees how social media can be useful in connecting with their children or grandchildren.
Tim Harless of the RCCS kinship navigator program, talked about the importance of grandparents in the lives of their grandchildren. The kinship navigator program is a RCCS program for grandparents who are tasked with taking care of their grandchildren for whatever reasons.
OSU-M Dean Steven Gavazzi was the event’s keynote speaker. He talked about Program 60, a legislatively mandated program that makes open college class seats available to anyone over age 60.
Otis Earl Hawkins received the first annual Hawkins community legacy award for all of his philanthropic endeavors throughout the community.
Door prizes, relevant information and lunch was also provided for the seniors.
