Age-Friendly Salem, Massachusetts

Have Help from the High

“Which means having the buy-in from metropolis management, the mayor, division heads, group leaders, folks within the healthcare sector, the college and our group growth organizations,” says Dominick Pangallo. “Age-friendly is one thing all of them determine as a precedence.” His age-friendly job power co-chair Patricia Zaido has given dozens of displays all through New England about age-friendly work. The important thing to success, she tells them, is “to have the backing of the mayor or whoever runs the city.”

Be part of the AARP Age-Pleasant Community — and Know Methods to Adapt

“I inform folks they need to be a part of this initiative as a result of older adults want advocacy,” says Zaido. “We’re primarily an advocacy group,” she says about Salem’s age-friendly taskforce. A part of being an advocacy group, she provides, is understanding the way to work with companions, coordinate efforts, knock down silos and, when wanted, adapt. One instance: “An motion plan is barely a map. You would possibly discover completely different routes which are higher. You might want to vary the course. Actually COVID made us do this. You would possibly notice that among the issues in your motion plan work very effectively with out you — or that some are an overreach. There shall be surprises which are out of your management. I hope people who find themselves going into this notice that they’re advocates, however it’s in shifting sand.”