This week, I have had the great honor of being featured on CNN network tv as its CNN Hero! It’s been an amazing experience, with lots of support from all across the nation for what we are doing. Naturally in a one and half minute video, the viewing audience only has a very small percentage of my story. Although the huge majority of the many letters I am receiving come from people who want to begin a Morningside Village in their own neighborhoods, a few people have raised vital questions: …read more of the MV Blog entry
CNN Hero!
CNN Hero!
June 6th, 2010Nuts and Bolts and the Weather
May 8th, 2010People have asked for help in creating Caring “Villages” for elders in their own communities. From time-to-time, using the blog, I will comment on the how-to of implementing a successful program.
Matching volunteers with elders, in terms of interests and time of day and date of the week, as we help people to age comfortably in our community, used to be a time consuming occupation indeed for the one Morningside Village Coordinator…especially as we continue to expand the project. Some of our eldest members want several volunteers to visit in the course of a week.
Here’s how we are resolving this: …read more of the MV Blog entry
Nuts and Bolts and the Weather
It’s YOU, Helene! Its Me!
April 18th, 2010[Names changed to protect our Villagers.] This afternoon, I met Barbara, a new Morningside Village volunteer in the lobby of my apartment building, and then we walked 1½ blocks to visit Helene. On the way, I explained Helene’s need for visits, for help with organizing paperwork, and about the problems flaring up between Helene and her care-giver. The latter answered the doorbell and led us down the long hall to Helene’s bedroom, where she was resting in bed, and as soon as the volunteer saw the nearly hundred old woman, she shouted, “It’s YOU, Helene! “It’s me, Barbara!” Helene tried to place the face but couldn’t.
…read more of the MV Blog entry
It’s YOU, Helene! Its Me!
Santa in Springtime
March 21st, 2010If there were a Santa, and if he had elves, they might very well look like the twinkling-eyed team of Morningside Village volunteers who, in the last two weeks, have befriended one of our elders, past her mid-nineties, one with remarkable cognitive powers, who had fallen and badly hurt her back. After visiting the hospital and finding that there were no broken bones, by ambulance, “the system” returned her to her home (of over sixty years) in Morningside Village.
…read more of the MV Blog entry
Santa in Springtime
Och, mój Boże, to cud!
February 22nd, 2010“Och, mój Boże, to cud!” are some of the words that formed on the lips of Freda, a ninety year old Polish-born Morningside Villager, on a recent Sunday afternoon as she stood in the light of Adelle’s open door, also a Polish-born nonagenarian living in Morningside Village. These two women, both residents of the area for over 50 years (names changed to provide anonymity), had known each other but, with one thing and another, including health issues, they hadn’t spoken for several years.
Both women were in touch with me as part of the network of elders whom we care for. I found that each knew of the other and so I arranged for the Sunday visit. …read more of the MV Blog entry
Och, mój Boże, to cud!
I Had A Nightmare! But Also a Dream Is Coming True!
February 7th, 2010This morning I awoke, so relieved. It had only been a dream: I was the only one in a large house far from civilization taking care of a 97 year old mother who lay in bed recuperating from a stroke.
I awoke not in a house a mile from a small town, but I was in …read more of the MV Blog entry
I Had A Nightmare! But Also a Dream Is Coming True!
A Theatre Piece on the Way
January 8th, 2010Over the holidays, I visited with three elders who live within two blocks of each other. They probably never met and maybe never will, for two of them are frail, elderly and housebound, and the third, also quite on in years, is recuperating from surgery. But I’m imagining that there was a time 70 years ago when their paths may very well have crossed. In spirit they surely did.
…read more of the MV Blog entry
A Theatre Piece on the Way
Living On Love – How about Joining Us?
December 19th, 2009How do we at Morningside Village sustain our organization? It must be on love. Unlike most of the “villages” in the aging-in-place village movement in America today, Morningside Village elders do not pay for what they receive, except very often in unexpected kindnesses. And, volunteer duties are not prescribed in a brochure where elder members can choose from a list of services: traveling escort, computer touble-shooting, snow-shoveling and more. Rather, our volunteers are more like neighbors. In fact, we are neighbors. We visit; we help with whatever we can; we talk; we listen; and we care for our elder friends.
…read more of the MV Blog entry
Living On Love – How about Joining Us?
Two-Way-Street!
November 19th, 2009Of course giving is its own reward. But, Morningside Village volunteers are finding serendipitous riches in their community outreach. In the past months our volunteers have enjoyed visiting with our octogenarian and nonagenarian neighbors: most are extraordinarily interesting, and we like to feel that our elders are cared for.
But, more and more, we are hearing about how our eldest neighbors are nurturing our volunteers. Yesterday, …read more of the MV Blog entry
Two-Way-Street!
Dependence Day
October 23rd, 2009“I have no one left but my daughter-in-law in California; what an angel!” she repeated for the second time with a heavy European accent…German maybe. Mrs. P. wasn’t the only wobbly nanogenarian in the neighborhood who had families that were no longer around. And she wasn’t the only one to claim she was “independent” when given a Morningside Village flyer: “no help needed!” Nonetheless, she took the flyer and agreed to tea. After a couple of very pleasant encounters on the streets, she invited me to her home where we talked and …read more of the MV Blog entry
Dependence Day
