Creating an Age Friendly Community.
Planning for retirement is about more than money.
By Martha Thomas
DECEMBER 2015/JANUARY 2016
Phyllis Madachy has been involved in the same book club for more than 20 years. She and the other women in the group, she admits, “talk about more than the book. We check in with each other, talk about what’s going on in our lives.” A discussion that might once have involved their children’s high school sports or 
career struggles, now, says Madachy, might be about “death of spouses, deaths of parents.”
Madachy, director of the Howard County Department of Citizen Services, sees her book club – and similar unofficial groups throughout the county – as a perfect place to begin a discussion about resources available for the aging. Planning for this inevitability, Madachy points out, “is not always about money.”
In September, the county government released a report entitled Creating an Age-Friendly Community, which lays out a 20-year master plan for Howard County’s aging population. Over the next 20 years, the county’s population of citizens aged 50-plus is expected to grow by about 60 percent, double the growth rate of the total population, according to the report.
The plan is to ensure that services are available to meet the needs of this population. “One of the priorities in the report is to prepare the “HoCo” community at the organizational and personal level for the aging process,” says Madachy.
Among the recommendations, she says, is re-branding so-called senior centers to welcome anyone over 50. “When we talk about aging successfully, we talk about starting younger. The way you live your life now is the way you’ll live later.” Promoting fellowship and good health in late middle age is a place to start, she says. “Being physically active is an important part of the planning,” Madachy says. “You don’t start that when you re 85. Take a walk, ride a bike.” She points to an Office on Aging program called Cycle to Health, that uses the pathways in Columbia. Physical activity, she says, “is something that is in our control.”
Madachy and others talk about “paying it forward” – that is, getting involved with organizations that help others before the time you might need those services. Neighbor Ride, she says, “is a great volunteer stop for older people in the community who have the time.” The program provides rides to Howard County citizens over the age of 60. The 350-plus volunteers are drivers of all ages. Including “mothers who take their kids with them during the summer,” says Madachy.
Family structures have changed in the past century; these days, as people move toward retirement age, they may not have extended family around, so friends and community members become extra important. Madachy points to faith communities. “Temples, mosques and churches have programs for older members, and everyone does things for each other,” she says. “Research shows that the stronger your social network is, the more successful your aging is, including fewer days of hospitalization,” she says. “It’s important to have a network you trust.”
The Village in Howard is a virtual community, designed to strengthen the social network. (SEE BOX). And there are unofficial groups, gatherings of trusted friends like Madachy’s book club. She would like to find groups like these who are willing to host a guest speaker to discuss retirement issues and resources available through both the county government and other organizations. “Asking open ended questions in a trusted group will get a conversation going,” Madachy believes. “In the same way we plan about the house we want to live in, or the schools we want our children to attend, we should think about planning for aging.” *
