Older Americans Month: Connect, Create and Contribute with Creative Aging

Pictured are participants in a painting workshop at Forest Hills Community Library, Queens. They are posing and smiling. — Participants in a painting workshop at Forest Hills Community Library, Queens, part of Lifetime Arts’ Creative Aging in America’s Libraries Project.

Each May, the Administration for Community Living leads our nation’s observance of Older Americans Month. This year’s theme is Connect, Create and Contribute, which encourages older adults and their communities to:

Connect with friends, family and services that support participation
Create by engaging in activities that promote learning, health and personal enrichment
Contribute time, talent and life experience to benefit others

The Creative Aging Movement

According to a study done at the Pew Research Center, “Americans are aging, and one-in-five U.S. residents is expected to be 65 and older by mid-century, greater than the share of seniors in the population of Florida today. Pew also projected that the share of people 65 and older in the U.S. will eclipse the share of children younger than 15 by 2050” (“Attitudes about Aging,” 2014).

Research has proven that Creative Aging programs have a positive impact on the older adults who participate in them. A 2011 convening of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services showcased evidence that “arts participation and arts education have been linked with positive cognitive, social, and behavioral outcomes in individuals across the lifespan” (“How Creativity Works,” 2015).

Capacity Building & Professional Development Needed

Lifetime Arts recognizes the importance of older Americans and the communities in which they serve a vital part. Our programs and services support a vision that embraces “Positive Aging” through arts education and reduces social isolation for older adults. Working nationally, we continue to build the capacity of teaching artists, arts organizations, senior center providers, public libraries, funders and government agencies which support our efforts to expand Creative Aging programming and build strong and diverse communities.

Over the past decade, Lifetime Arts has lead professional development workshops across the country, most recently in Minnesota, Chicago, Wisconsin, New York among others. Below are a few examples of the ways in which funders, partners, arts organizations, library systems, and museums are teaming up to prepare engaging, healthy, social participatory arts programming for older adults across the United States.

Pictured are participants at a creative aging reconvening in Minnesota. They are huddled in a circle engaged in an exercise.

Earlier this year, Lifetime Arts facilitated during a two-day intensive Creative Aging reconvening in Minnesota with area organizations who were awarded funding through Aroha Philanthropies‘ Seeding Vitality Arts Initiative and who have been invited to continue their programs.

Examples of Recent Creative Aging Initiatives

A participant in a painting workshop at Walnut Creek Wetland Center, part of the National Guild’s Catalyzing Creative Aging Initiative.

Participants at a Flamenco dancing workshop at the Spring Creek Partners Senior Center part of the Fan Fox and Leslie R Samuels Foundation.

Now in its second year, the NYC Creative Aging Initiative, made possible through the generous support of the New York Community Trust, and offered in partnership with the Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging at Hunter College and LiveOn NY, Lifetime Arts conducted several training events to support the arts organizations, teaching artists, and senior center staff offering Creative Aging programming in NYC.

The Pasadena Conservatory of Music Spring Recital, featuring 55+ performers.

Intergenerational performers participating in the School of Drag workshop.

Creative Aging Enrollment at Pasadena Conservatory of Music Increases

As part of its second grant cycle, the National Guild’s Catalyzing Creative Aging Initiative has made tremendous strides in helping arts organizations across the U.S. to better serve older adult learners, including Pasadena’s Conservatory of Music. The Conservatory has seen an increased enrollment within the 55+ community since last fall. Check out our post of the Conservatory’s spring recital featuring older adult performers.

School of Drag Attracts Intergenerational Performers

The Museum of Contemporary Art Tuscon received a grant from Aroha Philanthropies to host the Creative Aging program, School of Drag, in collaboration with Fluxx Productions. The 10-week intergenerational workshop series invited 55+ LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer/questioning, asexual, non-binary, pansexual, etc.) community members to explore art, narrative and performance which culminated into a showcase on May 4. Read the full story in our School of Drag post.

Access the engAGED Community Toolkit

Lifetime Arts is partner of engAGED: National Resource Center for Engaging Older Adults, a national effort led by The National Association of Area Agencies on Aging, a 501c(3) membership association representing America’s national network of 622 Area Agencies on Aging (AAAs) and providing a voice in the nation’s capital for the more than 250 Title VI Native American aging programs.

engAGED has launched a Community Toolkit with resources that can be used to promote social engagement among older adults in your community during Older Americans Month and throughout the year. The toolkit includes a brochure, infographics, fact sheets, a calendar of social engagement opportunities and more. All items in the toolkit can be customized to include your organization’s logo and contact information.

For more information about Older Americans Month 2019, visit acl.gov/oam and promote the observance on social media using #OAM19 and #ConnectCreateContribute.