Multnomah County Library Podcasts (Life by Design)

“I like to live my life purposefully,” says June Fleming, who at 74 is a poster child for healthy and engaged living and who nonchalantly describes her rigorous snowcamping and hiking trips. For 15 years she has been reading weekly to residents at two local care facilities, as a volunteer for the library’s Visiting Voices program. She has always loved libraries, calling them “the great equalizers” and she has a gift for reading aloud, noting that her husband and children always loved to hear her read. June has spent a lifetime cultivating relationships with elders through conversation, letters and visits and her work with Visiting Voices has deepened her respect for the wisdom of elders. June describes wisdom as the ability to adapt to change and not be diminished by loss, illness and death.  Hear a short recording of one of her reading sessions.

June is an author, too: check out copies of June’s books, The Well-fed Backpacker and Staying Found: The Complete Map and Compass Handbook.

Gift People is a program of  recorded conversations with civically engaged older adults, sponsored by Library Outreach Services, Life by Design NW and the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by Oregon State Library.

Volunteers with the library’s Visiting Voices program recognize that the joy of reading never diminishes with age. Armed with a stimulating variety of reading material from poems to novels, volunteers read to a group of elders at Portland area assisted care facilities. Reading sessions are weekly and typically range from 30-45 minutes. Hear a short passage from a reading session conducted by June Fleming, a 15-year veteran volunteer.

Gift People is a program of  recorded conversations with civically engaged older adults, sponsored by Library Outreach Services, Life by Design NW and the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by Oregon State Library.

Jim Wygant planned ahead to be useful in retirement. So, five years before retiring, he started volunteering for the Title Wave Used Bookstore. Thirteen years later and now retired, he thinks that volunteering at Title Wave is “close enough” to his dream of owning a bookstore. His passion for books, reading and libraries dates back to his grade school days when he volunteered at his school library. With over 3,000 hours given to Multnomah County Library, Jim’s service includes seven years teaching basic computer skills to older adults in the Cyber Seniors program. Cyber Seniors suits him well because it combines his love for teaching and his knack for reducing complex concepts to fundamentals. Asked what he gets from volunteering, Jim mentioned self-discovery and the opportunity to present himself in a fresh role, different from the familiar one that he played in his paid work career.

 

Gift People is a program of  recorded conversations with civically engaged older adults, sponsored by Library Outreach Services, Life by Design NW and the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by Oregon State Library.

At 62, Bill Brandt-Gasuen has a rich history of volunteering in Portland including 16 years with Multnomah County Library, 15 with Friends of Seasonal and Service Workers and 10 with Race for the Cure. When he retired in 2002, the issues that concern him deeply—literacy, homelessness and poverty—motivated him to pursue a second career as a full-time volunteer for these organizations. Having recently reached 14,000 hours of service to the  library, Bill credits his civic engagement to his upbringing, an innate desire to serve and, in the words of President Obama,”... a mandate to assist others”.

 

Gift People are recorded conversations with civically engaged older adults, sponsored by Library Outreach Services, Life by Design NW and the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by Oregon State Library

Hear David Rozell facilitate a discussion on the importance of community as we age. What are the qualities of a community that will allow us to age positively?

 

David Rozell is a certified retirement workshop facilitator leading life planning workshops and classes in California and Oregon since 2004. He is an adjunct instructor in gerontology at Marylhurst University where he teaches Creative Aging classes and he also teaches courses through Life by Design NW at PCC.

 

Recommended reading for this presentation is Claiming Your Place at the Fire: Living the Second Half of Your Life on Purpose by Richard Leider and David Shapiro.

 

Perspectives on Positive Aging is a monthly speaker series at Central Library and is made possible through the library’s partnership with Life by Design NW and, in part, by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the Oregon State Library.

Dr. Martin Luther King had the dream of creating beloved community, one that is grounded in love and that encourages people to care for one another. Explore in this session how we can create beloved community in our personal lives and in our community.

 

Roslyn Farrington currently serves as faculty member in Portland State University’s Women’s Studies Department. She holds a Master’s Degree in Education and served as the Executive Director of the Oregon Commission for Women from 2000-2005. 

 

 

Recommended reading: Search for the Beloved Community: The Thinking of Martin Luther King Jr. by Kenneth L. Smith

 

This program was part of a series entitled, Creating Connection and Community, that was sponsored by Multnomah County Library, partners with Life by Design NW, and offered in May 2009.

Aging is an opportunity to reclaim our own unique and eccentric qualities.  Hear Guadalupe Guajardo discuss how aging frees us to move out of our socialized consciousness and conditioning, so that we can reclaim our authentic selves.

Recommended reading: From Age-Ing to Sage-Ing: A Profound New Vision of Growing Older by Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.

Guadalupe Guajardo is a senior associate with TACS, an organization that serves and supports nonprofit organizations. She is also a co-founder of Tools for Diversity, a multi-cultural team that addresses problems caused by discrimination and prejudice and helps build culturally competent organizations. She is bilingual and bicultural, has advanced degrees in theology and organizational development and is a member of the Sisters of the Holy Names.  

Perspectives on Positive Aging is a monthly series sponsored by Multnomah County Library, partners with Life by Design NW www.lifebydesignnw.org. This program is made possible, in part, by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by Oregon State Library.

Learn how to create a richer, more fulfilling life, with new meaning and purpose.  Consider preparing a portfolio for your life after 50 and refocus your energies on meaningful pursuits.  Couples can prepare together for what may be 20 or 30 years of healthy living.  Hear Jay Bloom speak about the opportunities and challenges of this new age of life and the need for developing a "Portfolio Life”.

Recommended reading: Portfolio Life: The New Path to Work, Purpose and Passion After 50 by David Corbett.

Jay Bloom coaches leaders, managers and individuals in the private, philanthropic and government sectors through his consulting business, Bloom Anew. He also does leadership and management consulting for nonprofit and private organizations. He has been an interim President and CEO of United Way of Columbia-Willamette and President and CEO of Morrison Child and Family Services.

In a touching and compassionate presentation, part of Multnomah County Library's Helping Your Aging Parent series, Nelson shares his thoughts on working with people with Alzheimer"s. Learn better communication approaches and new ways to engage mind, body and spirit, while compensating for age-related losses.

Chris Nelson is the Life Enrichment Director at Emerson House, an Alzheimer’s residence in Portland. He has worked with the senior population for the last seventeen years.

Dr. Frederick T. "Fritz” Fraunfelder, ophthalmologist, founding member of the Casey Eye Institute and author of Retirement Rx discusses the four phases of retirement and eight key traits for aging and retiring well.

Consider taking Dr. Fraunfelder's “Retirement Docs" Quiz,” a self-assessment tool to predict how well you will do in retirement http://www.theretirementdocs.com/Quiz.htm.