Speaker 1
Good Saturday morning to everybody and welcome to Avery Heights Senior Living Community Show. Your next chapter. Avery Heights is a 43 acre senior living community with a full continuum of care, including independent and assisted living, memory care, and a whole lot more.

Now, this show will provide helpful hints and resources for older adults that will empower and encourage you in your life journey. From topics related to physical and emotional health, financial wealth, senior living communities, and more. Siobhan.

Hi. Good morning. Nice to see you.

It’s Gary Byron. Nice to see you. I can barely, hold on a second.

I can barely see you. I know. There you are.

It’s like a weird dinner table today. It’s like that big, you ever go to like one of those tables, they have this big vase of like big sunflowers. It’s like, hello, is there a person?

You got to move it out of the way. I can’t do that here.

Speaker 2
Nice to see you, though. Good to see you. How has your week been? My week has been amazing. Yeah.

Speaker 1
You know, that’s great to hear. I like to hear.

Speaker 2
Yeah, we got a lot of great people moving in. So we’re having a good time with that. And I saw my grandson this weekend.

He’s absolutely adorable. This is what it’s all about. He’s adorable.

I was making him laugh.

Speaker 1
What do you do when you spend time with your grandson?

Speaker 2
I just act silly. I love to dance. They always think I’m really ridiculous. But I like to just get down on the floor and, you know, what is it?

Speaker 1
wear a stumpkin and I was playing with his little toes and do you let your grandson get away with more than when you were a parent and allowed your own children to get away with he’s only

Speaker 2
eight months old okay but I suspect I will because it’s so cool because you have him and then he

Speaker 1
starts crying and you give him back yeah because I noticed that with my like this is for you I’m like what are we doing here and they’re like oh you never let me get away with this

Speaker 2
stuff. I’m like, oh, okay. That’s how my dad was with my daughter. I couldn’t believe how much she could talk back to him. And I was like, did you hear what she said? Did you hear what she said?

I was trying to get her in trouble. But yeah, she got away with everything.

Speaker 1
So we have a really good show for us this morning. Yes, yes. Do you want to, would you like to introduce our guest?

Speaker 2
Yes, we have a wonderful guest. This is a great new partnership or strategic partnership that we’re starting at Avery Heights with a wonderful organization called For All Ages. You know how I’m talking about how intergenerational communication and older adults and younger folks communicating together is so important.

And I was very blessed to find a wonderful agency at Celebrate West Hartford, actually. I was walking through the booths, and I was doing my mom thing. And all of a sudden, I was like, uh-oh.

And I went right over, and we started talking. And I immediately emailed her the next week and said, come on in. And we’ve got some great stuff planned.

But we’ll talk about that a little bit later. I’ll let her kind of brag a little bit about her wonderful nonprofit. Is this Devin?

Nonprofit. Devin is.

Speaker 3
Good morning. Good morning, Deb. How are you?

Nice to see you here. Wonderful to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

Yes. So For All Ages is, it’s a nonprofit organization. It’s a new organization founded in 2019.

And the mission is to connect the generations to end loneliness and reduce ageism and improve health and well-being. So what does that mean? What it means is that we create positive, collaborative experiences between the generations that showcase the wisdom and the vibrancy of older adults while countering loneliness.

That is at an epidemic level across all ages. And so really, this is even prior to the pandemic. So think before the pandemic, if we can think back that far and what our lives were like.

Loneliness was at an epidemic level. More than 60% of Americans were reporting feeling lonely, which is just an incredible statistic when you take a step back and think about it. And loneliness is different from isolation. So isolation is very objective. Either you’re isolated or you aren’t. Loneliness is very subjective and it’s how you feel. You can be around a group of people and feel lonely or you can be

Speaker 1
by yourself and be comfortable with that. How interesting is that? You just said something that really hit home where you can actually be around people and feel lonely.

Yes. Yes. Some people that’s, that’s, that’s almost an oxymoron for some people.

Speaker 3
it really has to do with the fact that we are social beings. All of us are, are social beings. And when we don’t have the social connection that we feel we need ourselves, that’s what makes us lonely. And so loneliness is different for every person. It’s similar to other mental health related issues that are different for every person.

Speaker 1
Is it related at all to being an introvert or extrovert?

Speaker 3
It is not. It is not. No.

Speaker 1
Because if you’re in a crowd of people, as I was just alluding to, where you can be with other people and feel lonely, well, you can say, well, that person is more of an introvert. They’ve always been quiet. I’ve known him or her or whatever, you know, their whole life.

And they’re always on the quiet side. Okay. I can dig that.

Not everybody’s the same. And that’s fine and dandy. But there is a big difference then, I guess, then between being an introvert and just a quiet person as opposed to being lonely.

Speaker 3
Correct. They are very different. And so what we’re really after is to reduce loneliness for everyone across all ages. And the best way to do that is to give people opportunities to come together with others in a safe space, a place where they feel welcome, a place where they can have fun and enjoy the company of other people. And that’s what we do.

Speaker 1
How do you do it?

Speaker 3
Well, so we think about collaborating with organizations like Avery Heights. And sometimes we’re outreaching people that are living at home. And we create these opportunities.

So we have a virtual program that connects college students with older adults during the college semester. And it really brings together the two loneliest populations, young adults and older adults, and they grow in intergenerational friendship. What we really love to do, though, is the in-person programs where we bring people together.

So, for instance, at Avery Heights, we’ll be partnering with Siobhan and bringing youth and young adults into Avery Heights to run intergenerational events. So that’s really exciting. We’re looking forward to that.

Speaker 1
Is it difficult, though, to bring that out of a person? There’s one thing about being lonely, and I know lonely people. And I guess for me, I’m trying to wrestle with the difference between the conscious decision of me or a person not choosing to socialize or wanting to socialize and either, A, having no one to socialize with, or B, not even knowing how.

Do you know like that? He’s a good person to break the ice with. Because, you know, everybody knows that person at a party where it’s like, oh, come in.

He’s a life of the party. He’s a welcome wagon. He’ll let you do, you know, blah, blah, blah.

But there’s certain people who, maybe that’s the extreme, but they don’t even know how to engage in a conversation. Correct.

Speaker 3
Do you teach them or? Well, it depends on the program. So sometimes when we’re running a multi-week program with the same group of people, we sit down with a set of the older adults and the younger adults and we have a conversation with them ahead of time.

So they make sure they understand what they’re sort of getting themselves into and the commitment of growing this friendship over the course of multiple weeks. When we’re running a one afternoon event, we bring people together and invite people. And if they have an interest, then they come.

Right. So it’s based on a different topic or a different subject or we’re doing something. It may be music related.

It may be art related. And so it will attract people that already have an interest in whatever it is we’re doing. And we don’t go knocking on the door and saying, hey, are you lonely?

Come join us. Right? It’s not what it’s about because I don’t think that that would work.

And so we’re just about having fun and finding a place to bring people together and offering an opportunity. And people who want to come, they come, and then we can help. We can help break down any barriers that they may have been having as far as maybe self-isolating.

And a great example, early on in 2019, we ran a program at an adult living community, And there was an older adult there who had been self-isolating after she had lost her spouse. So she had been in her room and had not been coming down to meals with other residents. And we ran this program and she heard the commotion of four and five-year-old Girl Scouts outside of her door.

And she opened her door and came out and sat with us. Now, unbeknownst to me, I didn’t know what was happening. But there was this magic that started happening.

She started engaging for the first time in five months. And the next morning I got a call from the director saying, hey, you don’t know what you did. But she came down to breakfast for the first time in five months.

So that’s the magic. That’s awesome.

Speaker 1
Isn’t it? That’s a great story. All right.

So you said you started in 2019. How? Whose idea was this?

Speaker 3
Ultimately, it was I found the idea. Let’s put it that way.

Speaker 1
You can take credit because you’re here.

Speaker 3
I know. Are you the founder? I am the founder.

Speaker 1
What was your inspiration behind this?

Speaker 3
Yeah. So that’s where I watched a family member go through a really tough period of time before he passed away where all of his friends had passed before him. Okay.

And he was sort of the last one standing and he became very lonely. Yeah. And it was my belief that that loneliness contributed to his deterioration of health and his passing.

So I started doing research and found a large body of research on the negative health impacts of loneliness. Loneliness is a root cause of anxiety, depression, addiction, suicide. Lonely older adults have a 30% higher probability of having a stroke, of developing heart disease, and a 40% higher probability of developing dementia.

And so I spent many years in the insurance industry. So this was, I’m not a social worker. I came to this as someone who was curious and wanting to understand what was really happening.

And once I realized the connection, I went out and looked for a nonprofit in Connecticut that I could work with and volunteer on behalf of and couldn’t find one. And so I launched this organization along with a longtime friend of mine, Gary Sikorsky. He and I launched this organization together with the idea that we were going to make a positive impact across the state of Connecticut.

Speaker 1
I’ll bet you are.

Speaker 2
Yeah, it’s awesome.

Speaker 1
How do you utilize this nonprofit organization?

Speaker 2
Yeah, so we have a few activities we’re going to be doing at the community. So we’re going to be doing a community with rock painting. So we’re bringing in actually some preteens and teens around Halloween, and they’re going to be with the older adults, and they’re going to make rocks, and we’re going to kind of make it kind of a Halloween event.

We’re also having them in our knitting group. They’re actually knitting tea cozies for all ages, which is great. We’re actually doing a social hour so that kind of brings some of those folks out like we were talking about out of their apartments and come say hello as well.

So we’re pretty excited, and we’re actually going to be sponsoring the Hartford Marathon through them as well. So it’s pretty cool stuff that we have coming up.

Speaker 3
Yeah, we’re really excited about that. And, you know, Siobhan talks about rock painting. It really isn’t about the painting of the rocks.

It’s about the fact that we will be bringing people together. We’ll have icebreakers and we’ll be getting people talking and engaging with one another. And then together, everyone will paint rocks.

Speaker 2
Yes, I’m actually excited about the painting of the rocks because every time I go to the beach, I get a rock from the beach. And we actually have like a table where we have all these rocks. So for me, I’m like, oh, the dancing of the rocks.

But you’re right. All that stuff is great. Obviously, yep, that’s awesome.

Speaker 1
On your website, you mentioned stopping ageism. How do you achieve that?

Speaker 3
Yes. So that’s a tough one, so to be very honest with you. But our goal really is to get older adults, provide them an opportunity where they can showcase their wisdom and showcase their experience, give them a sense of purpose, and give them the opportunity to improve their self-esteem. And so ageism goes both ways, right? Older adults may have a preconceived notion of what it means to be a young adult, just as a young adult can have that similar notion of an older adult. And so when we bring people together, everyone gets to understand one another better. And both the older adults and the future older adults, as we like to think of young adults, get to understand that aging and growing older can be a really positive thing. Yeah. Yeah. The life we always talk about, life is not over.

Speaker 2
Our big thing is your next chapter. That’s the name of the show. Right. And that’s what this is all about. It’s really important to bring those two people together so that they can, like you said, break the loneliness, but also have purpose together and start to communicate the younger

Speaker 1
and the older. And it’s beautiful to say. What kind of response have you been receiving? I would imagine it’s just extremely welcoming. Yeah, it’s been a fantastic response from throughout all of

Speaker 3
the communities that we have been working with. People are excited about it. They want to know how they can get involved. We’ve got parents reaching out and saying, how do we get our kids volunteering with you? And we’ve got parents, grown parents, who are now reaching out and saying, well, what about my mom? What about my dad? You know, can I enroll them in one of your programs? So it’s just been a fantastic response. And people really throughout Connecticut have been excited about it. Our intergenerational friendship program, which is something we launched during the pandemic, really out of necessity because we couldn’t get people together in person.

It connects a college student with an older adult for a once a week phone call, and they grow an intergenerational friendship. That involves college students. And we engage one volunteer at a different university to go out amongst his or her peers at that college and spread awareness of the opportunity. And that has been tremendous. Are these college students that want to pursue a

Speaker 1
career in human services or social services? Sometimes, sometimes, but not necessarily.

Speaker 3
So we have had people from a variety, focus on a variety of careers really get engaged. Sometimes nursing and health related, as you mentioned. Sometimes social services related.

But other times it’s people that say, hey, I grew up living in a home where my grandmother lived with me. We were a multi-generational home. And I know how much value I got out of being part of that.

And I want to support this. And I want others to understand what the great benefit is.

Speaker 1
What an incredible program. I would have never have thought. Are there any other states? What are you using as a template or as a blueprint, if you will? Are there other states that have something even similar to this?

Speaker 3
There are a few intergenerational nonprofits around here and there, but we don’t have a template. We design and create everything ourselves. So we just brainstorm, think about what we would enjoy doing, and think about what our parents may enjoy doing.

So that’s how we developed our fishing derby. We host an intergenerational fishing derby every May in conjunction with Winding Trails in Farmington, where we bring older adult anglers, men and women, together, and they teach youth who’ve never had the chance to learn how to fish, how to do so. And we pair them one-to-one for the morning.

It is. and the magic just happens but you know siobhan it’s it’s interesting how

Speaker 1
prior to 2019 an organization like this never even existed yeah you know and i think like how does that fly under everybody’s radar for so long because it’s not just it’s not just a senior issue i know people of all ages who are lonely you know um and yet i think we take that for granted where it’s just loneliness. Oh, I’ll go spend some time with that person. No,

Speaker 2
there’s chronic loneliness. And I think especially, you know, in Connecticut, I mean, other states as well, but I think Connecticut doesn’t necessarily bring people together. I think you have to go out and seek entertainment and social activity. It’s not like New York where you walk outside your door and it’s like all this stuff is going on. It’s like you really have to search and find it. So I think a lot of people are, especially, you know, go back to the pandemic, are lonely during this time.

Speaker 1
On your website, you mentioned promoting better health now. How do you achieve that?

Speaker 3
Yeah. So that’s really bringing together combating loneliness and isolation along with reducing ageism. So when we think about the health benefits to both the younger and the older populations that we bring together, you’ve got loneliness that has negative health impacts.

And if we can break that cycle within a person, that’s going to improve their health along with reducing ageism. So one of the really interesting statistics that’s out there is the fact that older adults, when they think positively about their own aging and feel good about it, they live on average seven and a half years longer. And so if we can get people thinking that they are enjoying themselves and that it’s a vibrant life and they’re still engaging and they have purpose, we’re helping to extend their life.

And so for us, that’s how we’re thinking about improving health and well-being. As relates to the business world, so I’m going to change gears for a second. There are lonely employees in every walk of life, in every type of large organization, small organization, and they are less productive.

And they are five times as likely to call out sick to work due to stress related to loneliness. And so one of the things that we started thinking about it for all ages is, well, what can we do potentially to help in that area? And we designed an education seminar that we are now offering.

We just did it for a very large organization throughout the country. We did it virtually, talking about how intergenerational connection improves social health, getting real about loneliness, and then providing ideas for people, both in work and outside of work, to socially connect.

Speaker 1
I’ve got to do this really quickly. Folks, you are listening to your next chapter, Senior Living with Avery Heights. We are joined this morning with Deb Bivens.

She’s a founder and CEO of For All Ages, along with Siobhan. I’m Gary here. I have to ask this question regarding the differences in the age demographics.

In other words, do the wants and needs of a lonely senior and the wants and needs of a lonely middle-aged individual, are there any parallels or is there any overlap of? I mean, I know that you can just say, well, we’re all human beings. We’re all social creatures.

We’re not meant to be alone. Yeah, that’s all encompassing. But I’m talking specifically about, you know, we all change as we evolve, as we age.

Absolutely. So, you know, are things more important or less important when you’re of a certain age in comparison to somebody that’s either older or younger?

Speaker 3
Well, I guess the way I would answer that is there is something called the U-curve of happiness, right? And so what it means is that the least happy people are middle-aged working people who have a lot of stress. And as we get older.

I’m sorry. That’s exactly what you said. What I was thinking.

Yes, Siobhan. And so we’re really happy when we’re young. Don’t be in the bush or anything.

We’re really happy when we’re young. And then, you know, we have all these obligations as we are working, you know, maybe taking care of our parents and our children at the same time. And then we become very happy as we continue to age out.

And so the older we get, the happier we get. So there’s this U curve of happiness. So I guess that’s the way I would answer the question of, is it the same?

It’s not the same because the way to engage, you know, I’m going to say a middle-aged person and get that person excited about coming to one of our programs versus an 80-year-old, they can be very different. And it really comes down to topic, right? And how are we going to bring people together?

We think about ways that we can offer programs that reach everyone. So music-related programs come to mind. Sports-related programs come to mind.

So we’re thinking about multi-generational opportunities. At the same time that we’re thinking about how do we work with organizations like Avery Heights and make sure that we can have a positive impact on their residents.

Speaker 1
I want to bring Siobhan back more into this conversation because obviously you brought her in this morning for a reason.

Speaker 2
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1
You obviously, I would think that Avery Heights and for all ages have a new partnership. You started talking about this in the beginning of the show and then we kind of got off track a little bit in just a few minutes that we have remaining. I’d like to hear a little bit about this partnership.

I mean, what an incredible resource. I would be taking every advantage of this seriously. I mean, you really, I’m so impressed with this organization.

And again, I go right back. I can’t believe this doesn’t exist. But I want to hear from you, Siobhan.

Speaker 2
Yeah. So we’re excited to do the T at 3 program that they have, bringing the college students with our older adults. Because like she said, things happen.

You know, someone’s husband or spouse might pass away. And so that person might self-isolate. And I think that’s going to be a great way to kind of bring these people back out.

I mean, COVID has made people isolate, that fear of, oh, my gosh, I’m going to get this. And so this is going to be a good way. Every month or every week, they’re going to be having this conversation with this college student.

Hopefully, they’re kind of upbeat and wanting to speak with their kind of phone pal, I guess, or pen pal.

Speaker 3
Teammate. We call them teammates. Teammates. There we go.

We have a play on teammates because the theme is T at three. Oh, I love that. We call them teammates.

Everything she thinks of. I love it. I love it.

Speaker 1
I’m just going to sit back and listen to all your play on words and your creativity.

Speaker 2
It’s so well thought of. Wow. That’s what I love about it.

So professional. It’s got to go on. Yeah.

Yeah. And it’s so well needed. You know, I think I Googled to see if there were others in other states.

And I think I found maybe we’re talking maybe in the Boston area. But it should be throughout the United States. I’m hoping they go kind of national with it and take it across the country because it’s definitely something.

Speaker 3
People have asked us about that. And, you know, we’re trying to be really thoughtful as we grow. We don’t want to get out ahead of ourselves.

And really what we’re thinking about is within the state of Connecticut, what can we do to bring together different organizations, different parts of the community to see what it is that we’re doing? And we’re creating, we call it we’re creating a space within a place, whatever that place may be. But we’re creating this space and it’s a safe space and it’s a fun space and it’s bringing people together in a way that maybe people haven’t thought about before.

Speaker 1
Yeah, it sounds like you really approach this slowly and gradually. You’re not in your face with this and you’re not going from zero to Mach 1000 in 10 seconds. You are – every individual, you’re letting them go at their own pace to be –

Speaker 3
Yes, exactly. So we want people to feel comfortable. We want people to be happy, right? So that’s the idea, that the more that people see the benefit of intergenerational engagement, the more that they’ll want to continue it and tell their neighbors and tell their friends and tell their family.

Speaker 1
I’ve only got about a minute and a half. What are some of your needs right now?

Speaker 3
Sure. So we are always looking for great volunteers to help us design and help roll out our programs. We’re an official charity of the Hartford Marathon, and we would love to have some volunteers volunteer on our behalf at Elizabeth Park.

You can sign up on our website at forallages.org. Join Team FAA. Check out our website.

Follow us on our Facebook and Instagram pages. Forallages.org is our handle. Check us out on LinkedIn.

We’re there, too, for professionals to follow us. But we’re a growing organization. Anyone that may have an interest in being on our advisory council, happy to have a conversation.

Or potentially even our board of directors, happy to have a conversation.

Speaker 1
Nice. I’m so delighted that you were able to bring in Deb this morning. I mean it, Siobhan.

In fact, well, we’ll talk off the – because I’ve only got less than a minute left. She’s amazing. She is.

And I can understand this partnership.

Speaker 2
The energy is like – it’s infectious.

Speaker 1
It truly is.

Speaker 2
I love it.

Speaker 1
I want to thank our guests this morning from For All Ages. You can check them out online at forallages.org. Deb Bibbins, founder and CEO.

Outstanding. I’m going to do some research on this on my own time. That’s great.

And see how else I can.

Speaker 2
And run the marathon, right?

Speaker 1
Well, boy. I saw you kind of give me a nod on that.

Speaker 3
You can walk the Charity 5K like I can.

Speaker 1
Come on now. I used to run six days a week, but I peaked at three miles. I said I used to.

Maybe I should start taking that back up again You’ve been listening to again The latest edition of your next chapter Senior living with Avery Heights For more information on today’s special guest for all ages Please call this number 866-537-1446 The first three callers Will get a special lunch And tour at Avery Heights That’s quite generous Might be something Maybe some lunch You might find me there one morning For Siobhan Avery Heights. I’m Gary Byron. Until next Saturday, have a good one, everybody. So long.