Creative Outlets for Seniors

Grandma Moses began painting at age 70. By the time she died at 90, her primitive farm paintings were selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many artists have worked productively into their 80s, including Picasso, Goya, Georgia O'Keefe, Chagal and many others. Statesmen have been productive into their 80s, too, including Nelson Mandella, Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, and Conrad Adenauer. Because a person is aged should not mean he/she should be relegated to total inactivity in a senior community or nursing home.

After I retired at age 65, I joined the staff of a newly-constructed city community center. I worked there for 15 years, conducting daily classes for seniors. When the senior program was started, it was intended to be nothing more than a babysitting facility. Adult children could drop off mom or pop each morning, and then go on about their daily business of work and raising their own children. At first, there were few actual activities for the seniors. The center kept them somewhat interested with lectures, discussion groups and halfhearted athletic programs designed for the elderly.

I'd like to take full credit for expanding the program to give the seniors more creative outlets. However, because of my career experience in community relations and fine arts college degree, I was selected to become a member of a group of motivated people who got together to start the classes. In our management group were several retired physicians who emphasized and monitored the mental and physical wellness features of the classes.

As a result of setting up our program, our senior population has grown from about 100 to nearly a thousand who attend the daily activities. Today, the seniors can participate in a large variety of creative outlets. They include classes in ceramics, painting and drawing. There are many field trips to local city museums and historic sites. Several faculty members from local schools and universities conduct classes in history, current events, languages, drama and creative writing. There are many in-house social events for the seniors, and several that mix seniors with the community center's littlest members.It seems we have come full circle in creating activities for our seniors. Now, when they're brought in for what was once called babysitting for them, they are participating in making babysitting for actual babies and themselves more meaningful and enjoyable.