EngAGE Fitness Coach Jack Witt Interviews Betty Reid Soskin, America’s Oldest Park Ranger

Jack leads a group of residents from Piedmont Senior Apartments in North Hollywood on a visit to MOCA (the Museum of Contemporary Art) in downtown Los Angeles.

Fitness Coach Jack Witt offers his insights and training about health and fitness in several of our EngAGE communities. He also leads resident groups on tours of interesting places and events around L.A.

In addition, he writes a blog on his GetFitWithWitt.com website. Most recently, Jack talked with America’s oldest Park Ranger, Betty Reid Soskin, age 95, about her life, her inspiring health and longevity, and her life philosophy. Here’s one of her timely observations:

“As the years go by, periods of chaos will happen, but out of these periods of chaos our democracy, which is a semi-flawed system, will re-define itself and it’s up to each new generation to make sure they work to bend that arc of the moral universe towards justice.”

Read the complete interview at NoHoArtsDistrict.com.

 

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News from Long Beach Senior Arts Colony: Art as Exercise

EngAGE art teacher Colette Brown and her students at LBSAC got some nice press recently on Gazettes.com, “Long Beach’s Favorite Community Website.” From the article:

Colette Brown, a 25-year-old researcher and artist, leads a ceramics class at Long Beach Senior Arts Colony. She teaches students — whose average age is 77 — as a part of the colony’s EngAGE program, a nonprofit that provides various workshops, classes and learning opportunities to senior citizens.

Participants shape, fire and create ceramic art pieces and objects, but may also, however, be performing a special form of brain exercise. To further explore this concept, Brown is currently leading a research project called The Mind is Muscle, a three-month art workshop for which Brown recruited a number of senior citizens, many from her ceramics class.

[We posted previously about “The Mind is a Muscle Project,” which was a 12-week workshop for seniors that aimed to protect brain health and stave off dementia. In the workshop, seniors learned about the neuroscience of brain plasticity and explored the multiple facets of communication and idea-making. “Connections” was the name of the resulting art show at LBSAC.]

Read the full Gazettes.com article here, and take a look at Colette’s TED Talk: How Art May Alter the Face of Dementia.

~ Helene Weinberg, Program Director

 

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Movement Based Performance Art Class for Three EngAGE Communities

Here’s an example of the kind of creative programming our residents will enjoy in 2017. This is a shared class that is open to residents at North Hollywood Senior Arts Colony (NoHo SAC), Burbank Senior Artists Colony (BSAC), and the Piedmont Senior Apartments in North Hollywood. [We have two blog posts today! If you receive the blog in your email, you’ll see both by scrolling up and down.]


 

 

 

 

 

 

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News from The Grove: Yoga

Yoga students at The Grove in Garden Grove, CA, stretch and relax during Yoga Hour led by Backhausdance member and certified yoga instructor, Chihiro Sano. [We have two blog posts today! If you receive the blog in your email, you’ll see both by scrolling up and down.]

~ Meloney Morse, Regional Program Director

 

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News from Cotton’s Point: New Year Brunch

Residents of Cotton’s Point Senior Apartments in San Clemente started the New Year with an EngAGE brunch, sharing their New Year’s resolutions, eating homemade egg casserole, muffins, and fruit. They are looking forward to another year participating in EngAGE activities!

~ Jennifer Fallon, Program Director

 

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Experience Talks 2/5: Sky Bergman and Scott Kaiser, M.D.

Tune in to Experience Talks, our weekly “Radio Magazine for the Experienced Listener,” on Sundays at 5:00 PM PT on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles, 98.7 FM Santa Barbara, 99.5 China Lake, 93.7 N. San Diego, streaming live online, and now syndicated on up to 100 Pacifica Network stations! Experience Talks is produced by the non-profit EngAGE, Inc.

 

Miss the show? You can always hear it as a podcast on the Listen Page of our website! You’ll also find an archive-in-progress of all of our previous shows there for you to enjoy. New shows are usually posted within 48 hours after broadcast.

 


FEBRUARY 5, 2017 @ 5 PM PT
SKY BERGMAN
DR. SCOTT KAISER
with host DR. CONNIE CORLEY


Sky Bergman is an accomplished, award-winning photographer. Her fine art work is included in permanent collections at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (National Library of France) in Paris. Her book, The Naked & The Nude: Images from the Sculpture Series, includes an introduction by Hèléne Pinet, curator of photography at the Rodin Museum in Paris. She has shot book covers for Random House and Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc., and magazine spreads that appeared in Smithsonian, Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel, Reader’s Digest, and Archaeology Odyssey. Sky currently is a Professor of Photography and Video at Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo, CA.

The documentary, “Lives Well Lived: Celebrating the Secrets, Wit and Wisdom of Age,” is Sky’s directorial debut. From the website:

What is the definition of a Life Well Lived? We asked forty people aged 75-100 with a collective life experience of 3000 years who shared with us their secrets, wit, and wisdom. Forty voices, one shared history of lives well lived.

The Lives Well Lived project captures the images, ideas and ideals of those who are proving that aging is something to cherish, not dread. That retirement doesn’t mean you retire from life. And that growing older doesn’t mean growing silent.

“Lives Well Lived” is an official selection of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. The festival will take place from February 1-11, 2017. It will be shown onTuesday, February 7th at 7:20 p.m. at the Fiesta 5, and on Wednesday, February 8th at 8 a.m. at the Metro 4. Details here.


Scott Kaiser, MD is a practicing geriatrician and Chief Innovation Officer at the Motion Picture & Television Fund (MPTF), which provides services, support and assistance to the entertainment industry community. He is an advocate for the improvement of aging services and geriatric care with a focus on better health and well-being through a community-oriented approach to the care of older adults. He believes in looking beyond “healthcare” to meet people where they are and where health happens: in their daily lives, with their friends and families, in their communities.

Scott received his medical degree from the Keck School of Medicine of USC. He went on to train within the Lawrence Family Medicine Residency, a program dedicated to the care of underserved populations. Following residency, he joined the Harvard Geriatric Medicine Fellowship where he refined his clinical skills and began to apply his interest in health promotion to an older adult population while initiating research exploring the psychology of health behavior change. To further his expertise in this field, Dr. Kaiser returned to Los Angeles and joined the UCLA/VA Primary Care and Health Services Research Fellowship where he served as a Health Media Fellow. In this role, Dr. Kaiser partnered with the City of Los Angeles Department of Aging to produce broadcast media projects aimed at directly addressing the needs of older adults and ultimately improving their health and quality of life; including, “On The Move,” a series following the lives of twelve LA seniors as they take on new challenges to become active, get fit, embrace a healthy lifestyle and enjoy all of the rewards of this transformation.


Plus: Tune in for a ticket giveaway for Sunday Gospel/Motown brunch any Sunday in Feb. at The Rose in Pasadena!

 

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News from Tavarua: Computer Class

Residents in the Computer Class at Tavarua Senior Apartments in Carlsbad, CA, started 2017 with subscribing to the EngAGE Blog. They love to be able to find out what new things are happening with EngAGE. They feel a sense of unity and encouragement when they read about other properties like Tavarua where residents are actively pursuing  new creative opportunities each day.

~ Tracy Freeburg, Program Coordinator

 

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