HUFFINGTON
07.15.12
TWILIGHT IN THE SUNSHINE STATE
creased education funding and
thought what was happening to
their neighbors was horrible.
Hahnfeldt, my Villages tour
guide, a self-described conservative Republican, says that casting all seniors as anti-education,
or somehow bad for the state’s
future, is unfair. His community
supports a high-performing charter school, he notes, and has doled
out $500,000 over the last decade in college scholarship money.
Thousands of residents volunteer
their time in hundreds of ways,
including sending care packages to
overseas service members, he says.
Migrant seniors, who tend to be
relatively well off, also provide some
measure of immediate economic
stimulus to the neighborhoods
where they move. Workers come
from as far away as Gainesville,
more than an hour’s drive away, to
work in the Villages, T.J. Andrews,
an an easygoing 25-year-old who
sells Yamaha golf carts told me.
“There weren’t many jobs around
here before this place was built,” he
says. “We are all grateful for it.”
Older people also put much
less strain on some public services than younger people. They
tend not to get in bar fights or
“THESE KIDS
THAT OLDER
PEOPLE DON’T WANT
TO SUPPORT NOW
WILL BE INSERTING
THEIR CATHETERS.”
need police to intervene in domestic disputes. They don’t want
to support schools, but they
don’t use them, either.
There’s also hope that such a
big cluster of senior citizens all
living in one place could provide marketing opportunities for
companies that want to better
understand how to sell products
to an aging America.
In Sarasota, the oldest large
county in the U.S., the chamber of
commerce and other boosters have
created the nonprofit Institute
for the Ages, with the aim of pair-