LOCAL Houston | The City Guide JANUARY 2016 | Page 32

A

...IS FOR AGING POPULATION

Everybody knows the old story about aging – the misconceptions surrounding the difficulties that come with getting older and how it’s something to
not look forward to – but Neighborhood Centers has set out to challenge
the status quo and provide a new story on aging, to spark excitement
around retirement and to encourage people to look at growing old differently. Through their framework for community building, which focuses heavily on asking people questions to determine what is working well and what
is strong in a community, Neighborhood Centers sat down and asked older
adults questions about growing older. What they found was a demographic of people who, despite their age, still want to be contributing members
of their communities, who want to remain healthy and active and who want
to wake up each day with a sense of purpose and value.

32

L O C A L

| january 16

In her white paper, entitled “Let’s Talk About Aging – It’s Time,” Vice
President of Senior Services at Neighborhood Centers JANE BAVINEAU invites
us to challenge society’s perceptions of aging. Her research offers new perspectives on aging – a reinvention of the way we look at growing old –
and that it shouldn’t be something we fear, but rather something we
embrace. Bavineau’s research is a rallying cry, a call to arms, to educate,
to spark