 And this is Talk of the Town. As everything else that's happening right now, in the coronavirus period, Talk of the Town has gone remote. And we are happy to welcome to our virtual studio today, Christine Shaw, who is the Executive Director of the Council on Aging. We've done lots and lots of work with Council on Aging in the past. And one of the things we hope to do with Christine is get her back in, get her into the studio at ACMI and get going again with the regular programming that we have. For now, we're going to settle for this chat. And Christine, obviously you've been working, I know, at the Council on Aging for a while, but in a sense, we're doing what we like to do on Talk of the Town and that is introduce you to Arlington and Arlington to you. In that, you have been the Executive Director for not a whole long time just yet. Tell us a little bit about that. Sure. I worked with the Council on Aging for a couple years now. Mostly, I was focused on our volunteer projects and managing the over 200 volunteers from Arlington that help out the Council on Aging in a variety of ways. And I also managed the transportation program, everything from our relationships with our cab companies, to our volunteer drivers, to our senior vans that you probably see around town. And then beginning of 2020, I was made the Acting Director and then very recently the Executive Director. Well, congratulations on that, I think. I hope. Thank you. Obviously, it is a wonderful distinction and we're really on behalf of the community, very happy to welcome you into that position officially. But also, oh my God, what a time to be starting. So let's talk, we're going to talk about all different kinds of aspects of what's going on. But for right now, let's start with just the kinds of things that the Council on Aging, because it's a very special institution here in town, is doing that is specifically in response to or in light of COVID-19 and this new world that we're all living in. So take your pick. Tell us a few of the highlights of the things that are going on. Wonderful, yes. Like every other organization right now, we really have refocused, re-prioritized. We're focused on really what's important right now, what we're deeming most important. So I'll talk about a couple of those programs that are big priorities for our team at the Council on Aging. One, it has to do with food access for people in Arlington. So many people in Arlington get their food different ways and we have some great organizations in town like Arlington Eats, Food Link, local restaurants, all of the grocery stores. And now, as we all know, the safety regulations around getting your food have changed. So in a couple of weeks, we've put together and started really streamlining with all of those organizations I just mentioned, a central food access program. So anybody in Arlington that's in need of food, at any age, usually the Council on Aging, we're talking about our older residents, but any age can call our food hotline number and they can leave a message with their contact information and someone will call them back. And we coordinate with Arlington Eats and Food Link on a really safe grocery packing and contact-free delivery for anybody who needs it. Just out of curiosity, because people will want to know, what is the number? So the food hotline number is 7-8-1-3-1-6-3-4-0-0. You'll recognize that as the Council on Aging main line phone number, but it is also the food hotline phone number two. Yes. And it is volunteers from Arlington Eats and Food Link that are packing the bags and then the MRC volunteers, which are actually Medical Reserve Corps volunteers, have been activated to distribute the bags of the groceries around Arlington in a safe way. They've all been trained. They're all highly qualified people that have signed up to volunteer. And as far as I'm aware, this is the first time in a while that we've had to mobilize them, but they're doing a great job too. Yes. Actually, I am very familiar with this because my wife is one of those volunteers. She's been at it for a number of hours each week and happy to do so. I also did Food Link delivery from the very beginning and for a number of years. And so I do understand something about the process. But as you have pointed out, people are very concerned about where, you know, how many hands have been on anything that we come into contact with these days. So good for people to, yes, be reassured that everybody who is in charge understands this very well and that they've put all of the proper precautions into place. And it does seem like the program is, you know, both learning as it's moving along and quite effective in providing the service already. Absolutely. I know last week alone there were about 250 residents that received deliveries. This week there were more, closer to 300, and we're anticipating it growing as the need increases were assuming here in Arlington. So we're planning on continuing with this method, which is a method that will work hopefully for the foreseeable future to get people food that they need. So that's been a great program and a wonderful partnership with a bunch of our Arlington organizations that we're kind of running fairly independently and now we're all working together. So really proud of this. Obviously these are the kinds of measures that these times call for and great that you and the other leaders of these organizations have recognize that and are figuring out how to do these things together. Yes, absolutely. It's great. Another focus that has been a pretty big project for us was distributing hand sewn cotton masks to Arlington residents and we decided that our first priority was to get these masks to the residents of the five senior housing buildings in Arlington. In total, that's about 750 residents of Arlington. It took a couple weeks, but we had some amazing volunteers. Most of them were through Laura's sewing school. She was a big part of it, but we had volunteers all over Arlington sewing masks and we had staff. If you guys managed to conjure up 750 masks in a couple of weeks, you had a bunch of people doing it. Yeah, it was really inspiring and then we had two staff members that went out door to door very carefully wearing masks themselves and distributed masks and information on how to properly take care of them and wear them because the folks in those buildings really do need to be wearing them even when they're checking their mail going to do their laundry or leaving their unit for any reason. We wanted to make sure that they had it first and I'm happy to say I think it was as of yesterday we finished up that distribution. You were saying that that was kind of the first area that you decided to prioritize in terms of producing these masks and distributing them. Does that mean that this is an ongoing project and you'll be moving on to providing masks for other Arlington residents? Absolutely. Now we're working on trying to collect about 250 that we're going to distribute through the grocery food program that I mentioned earlier because that'll be a great population of people to make sure they get masks as well and we already have the avenue of getting them distributed which is very helpful and then we've been taking down information from other people that need masks. We think the next focus will probably be folks that live in densely populated apartment buildings in town and then we'll just take it from there and as long as we keep getting the masks in we'll try to distribute them as fast and as accurately as we can. Yeah just as an aside before we continue with you know probably even more programs that you guys are rolling out for the benefit of the community I did want to say that there are a number of people who and you may be well be one of them as are the people you work with who find themselves busier as opposed to less busy than they've been before you know just in dealing with the current needs and trying to both identify recognize and then serve those needs. I'm wondering if that is your sense? 100% true for the Council on Aging and Health and Human Services staff I can tell you that basically for the past couple of weeks we've been working you know more hours but this is the work we like to do these are the people we know really well we've known them for years we care about them and miss them a lot we saw them all the time at the Senior Center and we want to make sure that everybody is being you know touched base with and has what they need during this crisis that I don't think any of us saw coming you know we were living normal lives people were coming to the Senior Center just less than a month ago it just hard to believe. Yeah the amount it is very very difficult to get one's mind around the amount of time it hasn't taken to put to have such incredible transformation in the way that we are all living I agree the work of course that you're doing but speaking of reaching out in different ways I know that you also have a telephone reassurance program yeah that's I'll tell us what that's about great we have two very very special social workers that work for the Council on Aging many of you probably know Lori and Marcy and what we worked on from the beginning of all of this with them is putting together a list of people that are isolated and don't have family members necessarily calling to help them or checking in on them there's a large percentage of people that count on us as their primary people that that check in on them so we put together lists of those folks that mostly our social work social workers know and our nurse works with and then we paired up some of our vetted and trusted COA volunteers with with people on that list and they're regularly at least once a week reaching out to them talking to them listening to what what what's on their mind answering some of their questions a lot of the volunteers participating in this in this project have social work backgrounds too so they're there to help people through the mental health piece of all of this which is very important as we all know and so that telephone call reassurance plan program is is brand new but it's working really well if people if anybody knows of someone that they think could benefit from it they are welcome to call the council on aging and we'll get them signed up for the program and are those telephone calls or are you using zoom or skype or something else to make visual contact with with those residents if those most of these residents don't have access to technology that is you know a pretty high percentage of the people we work with truly don't have smartphones computers or internet so old-fashioned landline calls are the way that we reach them and this is a program that can reach those two we do have a lot of programs that we are getting up and running on zoom group meetings and it's great for the people that have the access to participate in those but this telephone reassurance program is mostly people that otherwise don't have access to the communities that can be formed virtually on on the internet or computers yep that makes a lot of sense and you mentioned lori and marsy the social workers there we also know that you have always had a full time or a nurse who is also on staff and we're curious how are they all three of them um managing to get their work done and serve again that that population that is so uh in need of what they offer but there's got to be complications uh to to doing so definitely um you know they are all working remotely including our nurse um we're calling people back the same day to help address their concerns um our our social workers and nurses help people with things like you know applying for snap for food stamps that program can be done just by calling our office you don't have to do anything in person that's a really good thing for people to know that we're a official snap site our our office for any age um so if people find themselves wanting to apply for that program they just need to give us a call um but the they're also helping people apply for housing if they need it helping people through financial crisis our nurses answering medical questions for the people that she's worked with in the past and referring people to their primary care um but they are still managing a full schedule of um unrelated to COVID um crises that come up in people's lives um so those things are still going on in this world and they're managing you know very well and we're working really closely together with the Arlington Housing Authority and Minute Man Senior Services because all of us are working with the same vulnerable population and we're keeping each other really in the loop if there's concerns or people that we're concerned about um to kind of make sure that we've touched base with them in some way yeah it's great that you remind us um that there are there are so many non virus non coronavirus related issues that people have to deal with that are very serious issues that come up you know uh not only on weekdays but on weekends and you know at any particular point so um are you guys actually operating in a way that where where the things that you're we've been talking about are also true on Saturdays and Sundays in addition to Monday to Friday yes yes even though our office is technically closed to the public and you can't walk in um we're checking voicemails and emails you know really seven days a week at this point and getting people um the answers that they need as quickly as we possibly can so the staff is certainly working um more than the typical business hours getting the stuff done as they typically have in the past as well how are you you were just mentioning working with Minuteman and um just just wondering how how much cooperation collaboration is going on between the various uh services in town that do um that do focus on the those vulnerable populations you were mentioning um how how's that been going you know trying to figure out how you can collaborate and and uh you know make sure that the that the the total exceeds the sum of your parts if possible yep absolutely um it's a lot of zoom calls a lot of conference calls um we have a weekly food resource team that meets virtually um with a lot of these partners we i just had a call with Minuteman this morning that's a weekly call we also have um calls with our council on aging partners across the state other towns um mcoa that oversees it for massachusetts um so really kind of bouncing ideas off of each other discussing challenges seeing what's working well for each other and um the collaboration is wonderful i have to say it's better than i've ever seen it before because in order to get to everybody that needs help right now we really have to work together and um i it's it's great we're working with them like we're really one team i would say and you know i i i'm curious and again i i want to say right off that if you don't have an answer for this that makes a lot of sense to me but i'm wondering um as you as you work so successfully and so fulfillingly um with your partner organizations here i'm wondering whether you can whether you guys are already thinking about or whether you can conceive of how on the other side of this whatever that is um you know it might change the way that you guys do things and do things together and the and how often you communicate and in what way and etc i absolutely think that um whenever this is technically over um things will be probably different in a lot of ways and this might be a way that it could be different for the better because we do have all of this experience now working with each other seeing what our strengths are um some organizations have great pools of volunteers that we've never worked with at the council on aging and are now working with us as a as a whole so um between you know sharing ideas working through kinks of kind of merging our systems and how we're keeping track of our information and how often we're talking i think it definitely will probably change the way things are run in the future hopefully you know keeping things more streamlined for arlington making it easier for residents to kind of know who to call when they have um different questions and that we all will be able to point them in the right direction after working together so closely through this yeah i think we're all always interested in silver linings right for everything that's happening here and this does seem like uh you know it has a real shot at having a much longer and deeper and more helpful footprint um on all of our lives than uh you know then hopefully the virus itself i agree but a couple of more questions about different constituencies in town one is i'm wondering um how does the council on aging and the services that you provide how does that work for those who are in one of the um senior housing developments here you know um the sunshine sunrise i mean or um bright rises something places like that are those are people living there uh just they can access coa services just as much or just as easily as people living in their own homes or how does that work absolutely um both before and during this you know crisis we've worked with people um at all of those addresses bright views sunrise park yab nursing home um any of those communities that are private um you know there's still our linkedin residents and when our transportation was up and running we frequently went and picked up people and dropped off people at those locations um our social workers work closely with some of those people um and yes they are welcome and do frequently reach out to us for all of our programs and services and we keep in touch the best we can with the management and those buildings to make sure they have what they need and um that they can take advantage of all the programs the town is offering as well man you just give only good answers you know only only positive only uh you know constructive and reassuring um so thank you appreciate that um let's keep going see see if i can stump you at some point i'd like to ask you about a different another constituency and one that i have to say is particularly personally meaningful for me because i'll just take a moment and let you know that we are very grateful in my house for the fact that we happened to bring um my mother who's been living on her own in western canada for 43 years here to live with us just in january so um needless to say uh we are grateful each and every day that we are all together um and that she is here with us as opposed to in some other situation where we'd be a lot more worried however we have also found like countless other people um that there's a lot of work involved in caring for in our case an 84 year old with memory issues and um so the constituency i'm going to ask you about is our counselors and the social workers at coa etc are they available to folks like myself um non-seen well i guess i am a senior but not in the way that i'm thinking about uh family members who do have seniors in our own homes absolutely and lori august um was just saying this morning that she has gotten a lot more calls from adult children that have taken in their parents or other family members um asking you know how how to cope long term and what resources are available to them um we've had calls this week from people that are being discharged from rehab nursing homes um after a surgery that took place sometime this winter or after some sort of you know joint replacement and those people are still coming home um to families that need to take care of them too so um the same i would say the same answer would be for people that have any questions about caring for um older residents and whatever condition that it is we probably have someone we can connect you with i know um part of the challenges right now is that a lot of the organizations um that typically have provided home care and physically gone into people's houses to care for people um it's challenging because they can't always do that anymore with the new restrictions so there's a lot more pressure on families um and you know relations to these people that need to go in and do some of the things that they've never had to do before and we're happy to make sure that they have some questions answered before they need to start doing that or if they're scared about doing it try to help walk them through it and put them in touch with people that can help them as much as possible right um another another aspect of this um that i was curious about i know that you have over a long period of time you've had a medical equipment loan program where you know people could get stuff for the amount of time that they needed it into their homes to care for uh older residents there um are you is that is that able to continue at the you know in the current conditions what's the story with that program um as of last week we did still get a couple requests from people um that were looking to borrow medical equipment mostly in the situations where someone was coming home from rehab or someone had just had a surgery that was before COVID-19 took place um and they needed medical equipment and we have either helped them by um working with whoever has been in the office to um get the equipment we have cleaned and available for them to pick up in a contract free way um it's much more challenging to do that but um lori makes that call um if it is uh you know someone in need and we can help them we're still trying to do it as much as possible but as you can imagine right now we're not accepting donations of the equipment simply because um it's tough to receive them and clean them properly and store them so but if people are in um desperate need for medical equipment we can hopefully help them or point them in the right direction for some someplace that could you know i mentioned earlier that i was very impressed by just all the breadth of what it is that you guys are doing how busy you personally must be and many others in the organization um all this takes money and i think that um coa must receive some part of its funding perhaps the largest part um from the town i'm wondering has the town allocated more money um given the just tremendous amount of work that you guys are doing not only in the areas that you're used to doing that in but also expanding into these other areas yeah um the council on aging gets really our budget like you said from the town um also from the executive office of elder affairs um through cdbg state funding and then through private um some donations from um people in the community as well so we have um basically they've made it clear to us that they want us to be able to help as many people as possible so if there's something um that we need to make it clear and there's also been some generous people in arlington that have offered to help fund any um need for projects that need to happen um so far i haven't i felt like if there's something that we need that we don't have funding for we'll be able to find a way to get it which is a great feeling yeah that's it's nice not to have to worry about that as well as everything else at least right now yeah so one other thing i think that people often associate with the council on aging and have found so useful over over time and i'm wondering if you're able to continue doing it in the current circumstances is the publishing of your news of a newsletter um or just kind of regular information that is emitted from the council on aging about different programs that are going on different services that are available etc are you managing to continue to to put that out and how how is that happening yeah um our newsletter is the primary way people find out about um the programs and services we provided um we did have a march newsletter that went out right before everything started to take a turn um we did not do an april newsletter um and instead have been communicating through the town um press releases websites and and really kind of figuring out what we could and could not still provide um we are still planning on doing a main newsletter um and we'll be it'll probably be kind of an update on all of the things i'm talking to you about but also what is still going on and how people can get the services they need um in the meantime we've been doing a lot of our communication through flyer distribution at the housing authority properties when we're delivering the masks um we're also in the grocery bags that we're delivering making sure we're putting you know important information printed information um in there to communicate with people too yeah one of the things that uh that i know folks have often mentioned to me and that i've even started to pay attention to myself of course with uh the change as i would say before in our own household um is the number of activities that were offered through the council on aging for for seniors i understand that you guys are either about to roll out or have have plans to um some kinds of classes that people can still access how how's that gonna work yeah that's just just getting started um some of our support groups have had some virtual zoom meetings which has been great um but as far as our activities fitness classes are a pretty big part of what we were doing at the senior center so starting the week of april 20th um our monday wednesday exercise classes will be run by those instructors on zoom and we're actually in the process of communicating that to all the class attendees or anybody that wants to participate um that that will start happening and then we have our tai chi instructor and our chair yoga instructor that are pre-recording um themselves teaching classes and acmi has offered to show those um and which is kind of nice to know that the people that don't necessarily have internet access but have television and cable will be able to see some familiar class instructors um and participate in those classes if if they would like and that the as those come you know as you guys get that down um and establish a schedule or reestablish your schedule um is should people be coming to your website for for for that information is that the easiest way that is the easiest way yeah um we'll be keeping that all on our website also our facebook page and really the health and human service um facebook page as well frequently um is more is very up to date with the council on aging updates as well yeah and i i i guess you know i i want to just just remind people that we should all be cognizant of the fact that all the all your efforts um uh you know as as diligently and kind of assiduously pursued as they are um you know it's still going to be hard for for some folks who like you said are just technically are disconnected or technologically disconnected um to be able to access those services so i know you're working on behalf of those folks in any number of other ways but um you know what's all spare thought for the fact that you know people like my mom are going to be lucky in that way because we'll set her up and she'll be able to enjoy those classes and let's hope that that happens for as many people as possible um but also just stay mindful that you know good thing you guys are making those phone calls to people's landlines etc because there are a lot of people who are marooned um as as we as we know yes absolutely and those are the people that you know keep us up at night that we're trying to make sure we reach out to so if people know of a neighbor or somebody that they're wondering if people have reached out to during all this please give us a call um so as if there was as if all we've been talking about has not been enough to be on your plate you also arrive as the newly minted executive director in the midst of a bunch of renovations happening to the physical space in which the council and aging and senior center etc operate um what's the word with those uh have have has that all had to be postponed or what's going on so it's funny because that was my biggest challenge when I started right we had about one was the thing right right we had um one week of classes that um were happening off-site a huge part of our December and January and February were reassigning where activities were happening outside of 27 Meeple Street so we we got that under our belts for about two weeks before we had to shut everything down physically um and right now we're really just focused on the programs I told you um I shared with you today um I haven't heard an official update on the construction um I know that they're trying their hardest to figure those timelines out um and and I'm I'm sure it will happen I I don't have a set date for when it will start um I'm sure people will be you know looking to know that since we were really weeks away from beginning but as soon as we have that information to share we'll definitely share it as I said there's there's maybe this portion of your plate available for any of that or maybe none so that makes that makes a lot of sense um so my last question for you and then of course I will invite you to to share anything else that we haven't covered but my last question for you is I'm sure that there are a bunch of people out here and and maybe listening who would like especially after hearing about all the things you guys are doing would like to help in some way um how can folks help you do the things that you're doing well even before um COVID-19 started we had like I said over 200 volunteers so we are an organization that runs because of volunteers we have a small staff um but hundreds of volunteers that help us get the work done so I would say um you know in the meantime if you're interested in volunteering specifically for COVID related assistance you know give us a call let us know if you're interested in some of our programs or council on aging volunteer opportunities under normal circumstances we would love to have that happen too and I would say reach out to us and we'll absolutely utilize your help when we can and I would say if you're interested in volunteering um during this time it is a great idea to reach out to the medical reserve corps um the region is headquartered in Arlington um they have a website the medical reserve corps I believe they're region four and they are accepting new volunteers and have the ability to run the corey checks and everything during this time um so they're a great group that we are working with to um to make sure we have great volunteers right now is is there a website for that there is there is and I don't know it off the top of my head I want to say it's something region 4b it's a trick we will we will um get that information from you and show it on our screen people will see that uh uh by the time they're watching this part of the interview so great I appreciate it thank you that's great um so lastly you know we've taken up a lot of your time we really appreciate taking the time um is there anything that you would like to share uh with our audience that we haven't discussed or covered no I just want to really thank you and ACMI for having me on today and um I just want to make sure the you know people of Arlington of any age but especially those over age 60 that we typically deal with that you know we're really really you know we're worried about you we miss you um we want to hear from you um and just please try to stay in touch with us if you're in need of something reach out these are times you may have never experienced before and it could be the first time that you do need a grocery delivery or that it would be handy to have um some help that you haven't needed in the past so please don't worry at all and reach out to us at the Council on Aging if you need anything during this time um you know uh Susan Karp was a good friend of ACMI's a long time executive director of the Council on Aging and um we always enjoyed talking with her and speaking and working with her I should say um I am delighted um to to meet you um today and to anticipate us working together fruitfully in the future the Council on Aging is clearly in excellent hands and doing the same great work it always has thank you thank you very much for that for your efforts for your vision um for your collaboration with the other great organizations in town um through this crisis and beyond I'm sure so we will speak to you again and hopefully soon and we wish you the best of luck uh with the work that you're doing and uh one one one more thank you on behalf of the community well thank you thank you for having me for Christine Shaw um the executive director of the Council on Aging here in Arlington and for Talk of the Town I'm James Milan thanks for joining us we'll see you next time