Enhancing the Lives of older adults
By Alexander Germanis
It has long been said: You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. This is a tame way of saying once someone reaches a certain age, they are somehow incapable of acquiring new skills or changing how they look at or approach different challenges in life.
While some people have used this adage as an excuse or as a way of dismissing someone’s abilities, it is only as truthful a saying as someone is willing to allow it to be. Aging is not a barrier to learning new things, acquiring new skills, or handling a problem. To the contrary, most seniors and those approaching retirement are not only capable of continued growth, they also want to be able to live and contribute with a continued focused and meaningful purpose.
To help with that focus, the proposed Graceland Center for Purposeful Aging will be a community senior center dedicated to improving the Greater Peoria community by enhancing the lives of older adults through continued education, making new connections by stimulating social interaction and accessing resources, and bringing new innovations into their lives through accessing technology and ways to age successfully.
A Place of Grace
Peoria is no stranger to senior communities. Nursing homes, retirement villages, and assisted living communities dot the landscape. However, while these places are centered on providing care for seniors, they are also all locations where seniors reside fulltime.
The Graceland Center for Purposeful Aging (GCPA) is decidedly none of those things. It is not an adult daycare center, residential location, nursing home, or memory care unit. A community senior center helps older citizens, yes; but it focuses on providing a place that celebrates the grace and dignity of older adults by providing opportunities to congregate for fellowship and socialize, take classes, exercise, find helpful resources, and fulfill many of their social, physical, emotional, and intellectual needs. “There are places in Peoria where people can take classes or go on trips together,” says GCPA Founder and Executive Director Peggy Jacques, MS, RN, “but Graceland Center is truly unique in its role as a communal connection for older adults to enjoy one another and have fun!”
“Unless people have experience with the positive impact of senior centers in other communities, the concept of a wellness center with activities for the benefit of functioning, independent-living, community-dwelling seniors is unheard of,” Peggy adds. “Once people understand that it is not for people to receive medical care, or a place for people to move into, but rather it is a place designed to support seniors through creative communal and educational avenues and encourage older adults to live their best lives, they want to support it whatever way they can.”
The vision of Graceland Center is simple and threefold: to advocate and create a culture within the Peoria community which salutes aging as a privilege; to create opportunities for its members to benefit the community by sharing their gifts, talents, experiences, and wisdom; and by providing the place and opportunities that will encourage their overall well-being in an inclusive environment.
Giving Back
In Peoria, more than 30,000 citizens are over the age of 50 and two-thirds of that number are over the age of 60. Moreover, the 30 percent of the population older adults already constitute is expected to increase. Also, as most younger citizens will themselves reach their senior years, there will be an ever-increasing need for an infrastructure to support and sustain the older population. A community senior center is certainly a part of that infrastructure. Despite Peoria’s standing as the eighth largest city in the state of Illinois, it is the only one of the 10 largest cities without a designated senior community center.
“Research consistently supports that physical, mental, emotional, and social activity promotes healthy aging,” Peggy shares. Through the GCPA, “we offer two solutions connected with aging in community: keeping older adults engaged and connected with their community; and promoting the ability of older adults to age in place as they desire through mental, social, and emotional wellness programming.”
“Our elders have contributed so much to our society, and they continue to do so,” she asserts. “They pay taxes, help stabilize and support younger family members, and are a needed component of our community. Community-based senior centers have a proven track record of enhancing the ‘healthspan’ of older adults.”
A fulltime nurse, Peggy has made it a mission and a labor of love to establish the GCPA in order to give something back to this essential part of the Peoria community. “I have always enjoyed the wisdom, humor, and perspectives of older adults since my childhood,” she says. “As an RN with a master’s in community health, I know how health promotion activities enable all of us to have the ability to age successfully and age well in place, which prevents debilitating illness and helps avoid nursing home placement.”
Peggy strives to put her money where her mouth is, so to speak. Simply acknowledging what the older population contributes to society is not enough. Helping them continue to be a part of society is what matters. “All these experts keep noting the hazards of social isolation but are not doing anything about it! So, we are!” she declares. “Our number of participants keeps growing, and their comments of how important this connection with other people is to their wellbeing really keeps me going, despite the odds.”
The Days Ahead
Getting a sustainable project like the GCPA on its own two feet is a monumental undertaking, as Peggy has discovered. A non-profit venture, the GCPA will therefore need considerable help from outside sources.
Besides establishing a proper location for the center; soliciting support from grants, community stakeholders, and city, state, and federal resources; setting up self-sustaining funding, and hiring an operations staff are also necessary.
“We started out in 2020 with small donations and grants and have grown incrementally every year. The Central Illinois Agency on Aging American Rescue Grant and the Community Foundation of Central Illinois Emerging Philanthropist Grant have given us a tremendous boost forward to provide programming this past year. Our goal after these two grants are completed in October 2024 is to continue weekly programming with an all-volunteer team and solicit donations and more grant funding,” Peggy says. “The current participants are steadfast; they want to continue to build this and are coming forward to help plan ahead with the Advisory Committee we have created.”
Nevertheless, Peggy would agree that any additional help from individuals and institutions is not only welcome, it is vital to the launch and sustainability of a place that will not only benefit the seniors of Peoria, but also its entire population.
Aging with Purpose
Dignity knows no age limit. Dismissing someone or their abilities due solely to their age is not only narrow-minded and exhibits a lack of wisdom, but it is also painful to those who are dismissed. “We named our organization ‘Graceland Center’ because we want it to be a place of grace and dignity for our participants and to educate the public to adopt this attitude,” Peggy confirms. “We all need purpose, especially post-retirement, when we do not have our familiar identity wrapped up in career and contributions. Older adults want to matter and want to give back, and currently feel a bit out of the cycle of life without such a center.”
Our current older generation is uniquely experienced in that they have witnessed, been a part of, and adapted to major shifts in technology and societal change. As the years go by, the desire to understand and be understood never fades. The Graceland Center for Purposeful Aging will be a place where the older generation can continue to adapt to, contribute to, and experience the shifts yet to come.
Graceland Center for Purposeful Aging is an important addition to Peoria, Illinois that runs on donations, volunteers, and community support. If you are inspired by the mission of the GCPA and would like to learn more about it or how you can join our team of vibrant changemakers to help bring it to life, please visit us on the web at www.gracelandcenter.com or call us at (833) 503-7773. To stay up to date on what’s happening with the Center, follow us on Facebook.
