Senior Citizens Day - Houston, We Need A New Name
August 21, 2014
Senior Citizens Day is not a "Hallmark Holiday". In 1988, Ronald Reagan declared August 21 to be National Senior Citizens Day.
Within Proclamation 5847, the following particularly speaks to us:
...We can best demonstrate our gratitude and esteem by making sure that our communities are good places in which to mature and grow older - places in which older people can participate to the fullest and find the encouragement, acceptance, assistance, and services they need to continue to lead lives of independence and dignity.
Our team is deeply committed to understanding the lives and dreams of 65+ men and women. They want to be valued for their wisdom and knowledge just as peers in many other cultures from Africa to Asia to Europe and Latin America. Particularly Baby Boomers, the youngest of which are eligible for AARP this year, refuse to go quietly into the sunset and become invisible. Just as they changed the way things were in the 60s and 70s, expect more of the same as they age: Independence, community, power in numbers, increasingly connected through technology.
We conducted an independent study that offers an in-depth look at who Pew Research Center calls the “Newly Mobile Senior Set"
Through 10 co-creation focus groups nationally, followed by an 800 person survey it was clear the label Senior Citizens is not how they see themselves.
A few days prior to Senior Citizens Day, we created a space in our New York City Office and asked our team to add their ideas. Here is the view of what is emerging. As we build this map, we are meeting with seniors who live in Capitol Hill Village, a peer to peer community in DC that facilitates aging on your terms in your house for as long as you want. It is one of many new models for aging on your terms. Assisted living...no way.
Sachs Work In ProgressWe’ve just started shaping these words into an infographic that is a work in progress for us. We’ll use these projects to keep digging in on the labels and titles our Senior Set has inherited.
Sachs Work in ProgressIn the comments below tell us what the word "Senior Citizen" means to you.
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Check back in on International Day of Older Persons on October 1st!
