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, and
neighbors. Obstacles to seniors’ mobility were usually obstacles to everyone’s
mobility, for example, sidewalks in front of homes not being cleared of snow,
forcing mothers with children in strollers into the road. In a few weeks and
with little effort, we had 186 signatures on a form requesting the Board of Trustees to “work
with Carbondale seniors to actively pursue strategies that enhance mobility for
people of all ages around our beautiful town.” About 20 of us presented it to
the trustees at its February 19th work session on mobility.
Read what we presented here.
Read what we presented here.
Read About CAFCI
and Seniors’ Issues
Comments
Post a Comment