Each year EngAGE provides innovative arts & creativity, wellness, lifelong learning, and intergenerational initiatives for seniors and families in affordable housing communities in California and Oregon. We know that continued engagement in community building has a positive impact on our health and wellbeing, therefore, our programming is developed to combat the epidemic of isolation & loneliness through beneficial social connections and a strong sense of belonging for our residents and partners in the communities we serve.
We believe #CommunityMoments can create #ThrivingMoments!
Art in Review🎨🖌️
At EngAGE, we create healthy lifestyles by providing free onsite multidisciplinary art programs ranging from visual, literary, and performing arts including painting, ceramics, writing, acting, sewing, and much more. We dispel the sometimes-pervasive misconceptions such as “I am not an artist” or “I am not creative” by encouraging participation and providing support. Every day, in 2025, we saw positive outcomes as residents experimented with multiple expressions of creativity.
Celebrations in 2025 🧑🎨 🖼️ 🎭
At EngAGE, celebrations are a huge part of creating community and healthy lifestyles. Our showcases provide opportunities for residents to share their achievements and pride with their families, neighbors, and the broader community. Explorations of personal creativity provides opportunities to express oneself, and EngAGE showcases provide opportunities to share their accomplishments. Throughout 2025, we celebrated at all 43 of our communities in California and the Portland, OR metro area.
Health & Wellness in Review 
At EngAGE, we encourage active lifestyles. Addressing social determinants of health is intertwined within all EngAGE programming. In addition to the obvious positive impacts, exercise, gardening, yoga, and other exercise classes work to reduce isolation and loneliness while creating opportunities to cultivate connectedness. Every day in 2025, we saw these positive impacts across all 43 communities in California and the Portland, OR metro area.
Music in Review 
At EngAGE, we provide opportunities to learn and showcase music across many genres and experiences. Engagement in the arts provides opportunities to fulfill active lifestyles. As our former U.S. Surgeon General reminded us, active lifestyles play a greater role in aging than genetics. Throughout 2025, we saw this play out every day at all 43 communities across California and in the Portland, OR metro area.
Over the year-end holidays, EngAGE staff took time to reflect on all that the past year offered both professionally and personally. As the current Walk for Peace unfolds from Texas to Washington, D.C., the Buddhist monks offer us much to contemplate about intention, presence, and what we bring to one another. Staff shared how the residents we serve invite us to engage with aging wholeheartedly and authentically, and how affordable and supportive housing communities continually remind us of the meaningful impact EngAGE has each day.
Through shared reflection, we discovered the many ways we process time and experience. Some of us joyfully embracing the journey itself. What began as a timeline drawn on butcher block paper evolved into an art project; poetry emerged capturing the overlap between our personal and professional lives, and the ways they intertwine with one another.
Some staff reflected on how year-end contemplation can stir frustration, choosing instead to lean into emotional intelligence and connection. Others focused on preparing toolkits to support our work in 2026, catching up on administrative tasks that accumulate throughout the year, or reconnecting with old friends whose life changes prompt personal reflection. Each experience brought renewed clarity about the impact we have on one another.
We also gained new awareness of what social media and doom scrolling can take away from us and how unexpected moments, like a two-and-a-half-hour detour on a family road trip, can either heighten anxiety or offer an opportunity to practice patience. Some of us faced loss within our families and among the residents we serve, a reminder of the realities inherent in aging work, and life in its trajectory. Together, we experience time as a space, sometimes solitary, often collective, and feel gratitude for the community and connectedness that define EngAGE.
As we celebrate all that 2025 brought, we look ahead to a 2026 filled with creative connection and continued growth. Our commitment to fostering active, engaged communities remains steadfast, and we look forward to offering fresh, meaningful programming in the year ahead. Together, we are excited for what’s to come.
EngAGE changes lives by transforming affordable senior and family housing communities into vibrant centers of art & creativity, learning, and wellness.
Thank you for support in EngAGE!
#art #painting #ceramics #sewing #community #galleries #showcases #seniormoments #exercise #gardening #yoga #health #activeaging #music #piano #activelifestyles
