CAFCI’s story: The Beginning In January 2019, Niki Delson, Judie Blanchard , and Ron Kokish gathered some of Carbondale’s seniors to discuss our town’s rapidly growing senior population and what life in Carbondale was like for our age group. Despite Carbondale being a vital and progressive community, we concluded that seniors appear to be a footnote in town planning. As a political constituency with particular needs as well as abilities to contribute to the town, we have been barely visible and nearly silent. We decided to change that. We began by looking at the 8 Domains of Livability described by AARP’s Age-Friendly Community Network and explored ways to be proactive in our town. February’s snows helped draw us toward mobility as the first issue we wanted to address. We created the Carbondale Age-Friendly Community Initiative (CAFCI) and started talking with people: elected and appointed officials, assisted-living staff and residents, shoppers, parishioners, friends, a...