Greeting Card Art Contest: We Have a Winner!

Congratulations to Sylvia K. for her winning entry titled, “Delightful Darkness!”

Sylvia won a $200 gift card for herself as well as a $100 gift card for her community, The Piedmont Senior Apartments in North Hollywood, CA.


“Delightful Darkness”

There’s an unusual twist to this story which we are pleased to share, thanks to Piedmont Program Director Arnold:

Sylvia was born 1936 and spent five years in the Jewish Children’s Home, an orphanage in New Orleans, LA, that cared for about 2,000 children. When she was five years old, a photographer chose her as a model, and that photo was then used on postcards which were sent to wealthy people, asking for donations for the very hungry orphans. This was in 1941, just after the Great Depression and during WW II when everything was very scarce. The orphanage raised a lot of money with the help of that postcard!

Sylvia saved a postcard!

And here’s another twist:

About ten years ago, several EngAGE community residents, including Sylvia, participated in an EngAGE event in Pacific Palisades. They talked about their lives, including their backgrounds. Sylvia told the postcard story. At the end of the event, an audience member came up to her and said that she remembered Sylvia from that postcard, and that she had donated money to the orphanage at that time!


Congratulations to Magnolia@Highland for having the most entries!

Fourteen talented artists at the Magnolia@Highland Senior Apartments in San Bernardino, CA, entered our contest! The community will receive a $100 gift card which Program Director Alma is excited to use for a celebration!  Entries are below.

Congratulations again to winner Sylvia K. and thanks to all of the talented artists who entered!

Click here to see an album
of all 46 contest entries!


Contest details: The winning art was selected by our leadership team: Tim Carpenter, CEO/Founder; Laura Mason, Executive Director, EngAGE Northern California; Nancy Goodhart, Chief Operations Officer; and Maria Rojo de Steffey, Executive Director, EngAGE Northwest. They were provided with images of all of the entries labeled only with numbers – no names of the artists or their communities were included.

EngAGE looks forward to sharing the winning image on greeting cards that will be used for promotion of our organization.

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Liv Schaffer at Virtual Creative Aging Symposium

Liv Schaffer, EngAGE’s Intergenerational Programs Director and Director of Dance Generators, will be a speaker at the 6th annual Creative Aging Symposium, which begins at 9 a.m. on February 9th. This virtual event will explore how creativity helps us rediscover pathways to joy. Learn more here.

Registration fee is $12, but if this is a hardship, you can request a free ticket by emailing creativespark@frontporch.org.

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Welcome to the Team: Sarah Davis

EngAGE welcomes Sarah Davis, our Community for All Ages Program Director for Broadleaf Arbor in St. Helens, Oregon.

Over the past several years, Sarah has been a voice for the St. Helens, OR, community. As a parent and a community member, she has advocated for whole health community well-being through her work in school-based health centers, suicide prevention, and upstream prevention as the focus of her personal and professional life mission. Her focus on strength, kindness, and hope as core values bring a unique set of skills to provide services in her new role at EngAGE Northwest.

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EngAGE Programming Highlights: December 2022

Our committed team delivered innovative programming
to the residents of our communities in California and Oregon.

Click here for details and more photos in our December quarterly report.

EngAGE creates community for all ages!


Please like and follow us on social media so you can see posts from all of our communities! As always, we thank your for your interest in EngAGE.


Support EngAGE with a donation by credit card or PayPal or send a check to our mailing address below!

Click here for PayPal/credit card donation!

EngAGE, Inc., 240 E. Verdugo Avenue, Suite 100, Burbank, CA 91502

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EngAGE Receives Grant from The Eisner Foundation

EngAGE is grateful for the $350,000 grant awarded by The Eisner Foundation which will provide two years of program support to create learning and mentoring opportunities for children and low-income seniors through intergenerational arts education and collaborations between affordable senior housing residents and schools in Southern California.


The Eisner Foundation identifies, advocates for, and invests in high-quality and innovative programs that unite multiple generations for the enrichment of our communities.

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Timber Ridge Community for All Ages Groundbreaking in Oregon

Groundbreaking for Timber Ridge

Northeast Oregon Housing Authority (NEOHA) and Community Development Partners (CDP) have started construction of La Grande’s newest housing community, Timber Ridge, a 4.8-acre, 82-unit affordable housing development designed to foster community and intergenerational living while providing the services and support needed for individuals and families to thrive. The development of Timber Ridge is critical to addressing the region’s affordable housing needs.

EngAGE Northwest (NW) will lead the resident services programming, in collaboration with NEOHA, with additional childhood education services provided by Eastern Oregon University’s Head Start program.

Maria Rojo de Steffey, Executive Director of EngAGE NW, offered these comments:

“It is very exciting for us to work with NEOHA and CDP to bring EngAGE programming to this Community for All Ages. Sometimes we forget that since the beginning of time our ancestors succeeded by relying on the strengths of all members of their tribes and clans. The wisdom of the elders helped guide the actions of everyone while imparting important lessons to the children. The children in turn provided help for the elders as needed. And the physical strength and skills of the adults provided for the welfare of all. This is what a Community for All Ages is all about. EngAGE Northwest looks forward to collaborating at Timber Ridge to achieve this kind of meaningful experience for residents.”

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Marc Mantell Teaches Musical Theater Movement

The Picerne Family Foundation supports programming at the North Hollywood and Burbank Senior Arts Colonies through a new Musical Theatre Movement class led by Marc Mantell, an accredited actor, director, and writer who has taught professional level acting, dance, and musical theater in New York and Los Angeles. A former Broadway dancer himself, he weaves stories of his personal experiences with the history behind Broadway musical productions, then incorporates dance movements and simple combinations from these shows into exercise routines that can be executed by people at any level of ability, including those using walkers and wheelchairs.  Familiar songs from famous musicals such as “Chicago” and “West Side Story” inspire the routines. The class, which is also supported by the LA County Department of Arts and Culture, is an enormous hit with residents!  See a 30″ video here.

Marc’s theatrical career as a performer and author is as diversified as his talent. He has appeared in films and has had guest leads on television with recurring roles on both soaps and a series. These acting credits have been combined with an impressive body of work in the theater. Within a short time after his debut performance on the New York stage at the age of fourteen, he was being acknowledged as a strong dancer and singer.

Marc constantly studied with the best teachers in New York. He was cast by some of the theater’s finest directors and performed leading roles in major productions and tours of such musicals as The Sound of Music; The Fantasticks; West Side Story; Fiddler on the Roof; Stop the World – I Want to Get Off; Promises, Promises; and Gypsy. A season with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada led to a series of dramatic leads in various productions of The Lion in Winter, Antigone, Satyricon, Spring Awakening, Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It, and Macbeth, in venues ranging from the Public Theater in New York to the Ahmanson in Los Angeles.

Marc brings yet another vibrant and exciting class to our residents. We look forward to witnessing their growth under his tutelage.


Posted in Acting, Burbank Senior Artists Colony, Community News, Dance, Exercise/Sports, Music, NoHo Senior Arts Colony | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment