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FOCUS ON FIVE: What Defines Us?

 

 

By Rochelle Lefkowitz

Newest Ashby Village Board member and

Communications Team Leader 

  

As our new Communications Team works hard to find the best way to say just what Ashby Village is (contributions welcome!), here's a snapshot of where we’ve come in the past five years.

 

To explain “What is Ashby Village?”, once you say what we’re not—a residential facility—it can be tough to find the words for exactly what we are.  

 

 Since 2010, back when we thought Ashby Village was only about aging in place, three key features have emerged. 

 

PARADIGM:  First, we’ve been pioneering a real shift in how we age.  Forget rocking alone on the porch for the next several decades!  Why choose between a rock and a hard place (the rock of isolated independence and the hard place of unwanted dependence)?  Instead, together we’re creating a third way:  to engage with others to live interdependently.  How? As we sponsor activities that bring people together for fun and for meaning, Ashby Village models this new paradigm.

 

PARTNERSHIP:  Second, we’ve become attractive partners.  By 2020, its estimated that one in five residents of greater Berkeley will be over 65. We’ve built a clearinghouse that links our members to local resources and makes sure we use them effectively. The result?  We’re rapidly networking with many Bay Area nonprofits, including the Center for Independent Living, whose free computer classes we’re filling (want to learn to use Facebook with some Ashby Village pals?).

 

COMMUNITY:  Last, but not at all least, we’ve found that while we may have come to Ashby Village for the services, we stay for the community.  With ten neighborhood groups, 350 members and over 270 volunteers, we represent a widening range of interests.  Relationships that start as service-based exchanges blossom into true friendships (one source of friendships are MedPals, who escort members to doctors appointments and, if asked, take notes, and even ask questions they’ve prepared together).  Check out our regular Newsletter feature by the Story Team, which highlights such relationships (click here). As Board member Laura Peck said when recently asked to describe Ashby Village in six words:  “New friends, walking each other home”.

 

What six words would you use to describe Ashby Village?   Send your six words to publications@ashbyvillage.org

 

Tell us your favorite Ashby Village story, the one that got a friend of yours to join?  We’d love to hear it!




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