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From The Times Record, June 25, 2007
'People Plus offers update on Community for All Ages'
By Rachel Ganong
Times Record Staff
BRUNSWICK
More than a year since efforts to foster interaction between
generations started in Brunswick, the topic of a multi-age community will
return to the fore at the People Plus board of trustees' annual meeting
Tuesday at Brunswick High School on Maquoit Road.
Trustees have invited guest speaker Nancy Henkin, executive director of
the Intergenerational Learning Center at Temple University, to talk about
the role of older adults in Brunswick's Community for All Ages effort, an
idea she introduced at a May 2006 forum in Brunswick.
Since then, People Plus has established a steering committee to oversee
the effort of promoting a Community for All Ages and received a $25,000
grant from New York City-based Florence V. Burden foundation to hire
part-time coordinator Nancy Porter.
Porter and various committees have been working during the last year to
plan activities and identify existing multi-age interaction and needs in
town. Committee member and director of development for United Way of Mid
Coast Maine Kathy Christensen heads the effort's civic engagement
committee, which aims to foster multi-age interaction through volunteerism
and civic activity.
Her committee is planning activities such as pen pal pairings of older
and younger residents, community gardening, theater work, intergenerational
art shows and public art projects as means of facilitating multi-age
interaction. It will all culminate in a specific event next year.
Christensen became involved because the benefits of having all ages
engaged in community life are some of the same goals she's working to
achieve with the United Way.
In some ways it was just a way of looking at it," she said.
Committee member Mathew Eddy, who also serves as Brunswick's economic
development director, is working with committee members to identify
existing intergenerational activity in the community.
We're trying to figure out what we have going on out there that's
intergenerational and what are the gaps," he said.
His committee, in an attempt to improve intergenerational interaction
in town, is conducting surveys to determine which community organizations
exist, who they serve and who they would like to serve.
Eddy sees the effort as a marketing tool for the community that could
help attract businesses, families and individuals. It's a really, really
nice moniker that we can put on ourselves," he said.
In addition to Henkin's talk at Tuesday's meeting, those attending the
breakfast will hear a review of the ongoing all-age community efforts in
Brunswick so far.
Registration starts at 7:30 a.m., and breakfast begins at 8 a.m. Cost
to attend is $9; RSVP by calling People Plus at 729-0757.