New Providence-Our Community For All
Submitted by Patricia Jacobs
Hello, Friendly Volunteers from New Providence- Our Community For All:
I want to thank all of you for your enthusiasm and your friendship over the last 18 months, since our organization began. We did good work together! It’s such a kudo that as we closed out our part of the project with a bang- New Providence was recognized as the 17th town in New Jersey to become part of the WHO/AARP Age-Friendly Network on June 9!
We could not have done any of our good work without the support of Renie Carniol and The Grotta Fund for Senior Care. Their inspiration, their leadership and their funding made all our work possible. We are so grateful to them for leading the way toward a more age-friendly New Jersey!
It’s also important that I thank our four board members for their stalwart support. We only held one board meeting in person- our last one! But they were always available for whatever we needed- and kept their good sense of humor even in our darkest pandemic days. Thank you to Bill Hoefling, Tom Montrone, Pete DeSarno and Michelle Matsikoudis for your strength, your kindness, your compassion and your diligence.
Here’s a brief review, and more genuine heartfelt thank you’s:
Due to coronavirus, in April of 2020 we pivoted from our planned work of listening to older adults about their age-friendly life and future in New Providence, and we dived into being helpful in any way we could think of to support our neighbors. Special thanks go to Sunil Aborl, who started the grocery shopping service idea that we picked up, and to Chanda Yonzon, who faithfully coordinated that effort with me for 18 months! And of course, our partners at the NP Senior Center, Therese Dalton and Michelle Zack, who coordinated finding us local older adults who might want our service, as they checked in on older adults by phone from the center. This work was called “miraculous” and “a lifesaver,” by our service recipients. So heartwarming. It was also special that Jules, the manager of Acme in New Providence, made available store credit to buy birthday cakes or balloons on our older adults’ birthdays- it added a personal touch when we could not even see each other face to face.
We also put together a team to do mailings to older adults in April, getting out the info they needed to access government resources and information, even if they were not connected to the internet. We mailed thousands of pieces of mail, using the database of registered voters in New Providence, screened by age. Special thanks to Evan Hoefling and Paul Thompson for finding that resource for us, and sorting it in the right ways that we could use it for batch mailings. And to Tracy Capuccio who organized the mailing committee. The mailing team members were faithful collators, sorters, folders and stampers. Pat Colatarci and Kori Markel were amazing drivers- they picked up and delivered to front porches all over town- keeping social distance, and masked.
Once the pandemic numbers began to slow down, we began some projects to invite older adults into civic life, joining with younger members of the community. We created two projects- the first one was the flag creation/bunting project called Out of Many ONE! Our support from local Girl Scouts, under the leadership of Anne Keller, let us get to know 4 young women who worked hard on this project. They created the free fabric-square flags, put them in bags, labelled them for families to pick up, and later assembled them into the bunting we used to fully decorate the pavilion in Centennial Park by flag day, 2020. Special thanks to Stacey Gunderman, who organized this whole project from start to finish. And to Ilyse Rogozenski, who was a leader on this committee. And to all the folks who hopped in here and there- including Mayor Al Morgan who showed up with ladders and helped on installation day!!
When it became clear the pandemic would basically derail a lot of the Tricentennial Celebration plans, we worked with that committee to do two different projects, both related to town pride and volunteerism. We began a project called 300 Stories where we collected reminiscences of long-tenured NP residents, using high school and college students as interviewers. This project is almost wrapped up- and it had many leaders in its evolution. Thanks to Kevin Montrone who got it rolling, and got us established on the Story Corps website, where the stories will be archived at the Library of Congress. Stacey Gunderman and high schooler Carmen Dai, also took turns helping lead this effort. Lillie Matsikoudis was a great interviewer, and then transitioned to being our video editor. Chris Flanagan, from NP PTSA and Lisa Florio from the Library were stawart team leaders, and Jane Xu connected us to many of our best interviewers with her WeChat connections!
The Tricentennial Committee also worked with us on creating a webpage on our website:npocfa.org, where New Providence residents can go to explore volunteer opportunities in town. It’s still up! Use it and share the news that it’s out there for anyone looking to give back in NP. Kathleen Dolan, Nora Murphy, Pat Colatarci and Flo Zurawski did the legwork of contacting dozens of people in NP to get as many good connections, phone numbers, group explanations, and email addresses as we could muster. It’a a great page- try it here: npocfa.org/volunteer-connection-nav Another thank you to Evan Hoefling here- who helped me build out the website- for his work creating this page and all it’s many connections from scratch. It’s so easy to use- thanks, Evan.
We began to feel like people were coming out of the shock of the early pandemic in June 2020, and did some phone survey work to see how things were going for older adults. Jimin Liu, Kori Markel and Kevin Montrone took the lead on this – and we talked to dozens of NP older adults. This was the seed of our bigger project that culminated in our Livability Survey in October 2020, and this team hung in there for all of that! Indeed- Kori and Jimin were both at the Council meeting in January 2021 where we presented our survey results! Kori was the anchor man for the team, for all of us. Her market research expertise saved us thousands of dollars, and her cheerful professional help made the final data super accessible. If you haven’t seen the survey results yet- they are on the front page of the website. Check it out: npocfa.org/
We worked well with other Age-Friendly Towns throughout the year and a half, too. Cathy Rowe from SOMA Two Towns For All Ages shared a program with us called Operation Blue Angel that we instituted with Police Chief Theresa Gazaway and Community Services Officer and Detective Dave Rodriguez, where they give away free lockboxes to older adults living alone, to which emergency responders have the only code. This allows emergency teams to access a home even if the owner cannot get to the door in an emergency. Working with Katie York of Lifelong Montclair, and Cathy, again, we planned two very well-attended webinars on Cohousing with an architect from NYC. Good teamwork across towns.
The leadership of New Providence is spreading locally, too. We’ve been invited to speak on Age-Friendly topics to both the Berkeley Heights Council and Silver Summit, the new nonprofit pursuing age-friendly work in that town. The idea of making our local area a great place to grow older, as well as a great place to grow up, is gaining ground!
In the darker days of winter 2020/21 we gathered a group of NP residents from all parts of the community on Zoom, and we formed an Asset Mapping Team. We met several times- both to map dozens of borough assets and later to plan some ways to tie these important town resources together to make new opportunities for the town to be age-friendly. I’ll attach the Asset Map to this email, if you never got to see it. Imagine using this with the Liveability Survey data to plan good ways forward for the initiative!
Also in the spirit of partnership- we worked very closely with Eagle Scout Thomas Horan as he completed a great project right in downtown NP- an in-ground deck for the residents of Barabash Manor, our only affordable apartment complex for older adults. What a great family- Thomas and his mom and dad were just awesome to work with. The Lions Club of New Providence supported the work financially with a $1,000 grant. And local landscape architect, Jeff Grob gave so generously of his time and expertise- we could not have done the project without him! Our board chair, Bill Hoefling, was also amazing- being on site all the time to support and even wield a shovel when needed. Super teamwork. Still to come is the sun/insect canopy. I heard it’s finally on its way- so Boy Scout Troop One will step in again to install it in the coming weeks.
Since analyzing the results of the Liveability Survey and sharing it with Mayor and Council, we’ve done some pilot projects around town to help make New Providence more age-friendly, from buying new picnic tables and supporting landscaping at the DeCorso Center, to working the the NP Library to begin an adults-only movie/discussion series this fall, to advertising the walkability of downtown NP.
This will be my last official communication for our group- as a group. Beginning now, in July 2021, the age-friendly initiative in New Providence will be led by the Borough itself. You will remember that we got our start under the auspices of the Economic Development Committee. Now the work will be coordinated by Allison Smith, the Director of Community Activities in New Providence. You can reach her at asmith@newprov.us. All of you will have your emails shared with Allison- I hope you stay involved!
