 Good evening, everyone Good evening Thank you My name is Jeanine Ventura, and I'm the assistant commissioner for interagency Collaboration and innovation at the New York City Department for the aging I'm pleased to welcome all of you today in recognition of older Americans month Which takes place in May as well as introduce you to the work of the cabinet for older New Yorkers The theme for this year for older Americans month is aging unbound providing an opportunity to recognize the rich diversity and aging experiences and Focus on how we as a community can combat age of stereotypes and The cabinet for older New Yorkers works to do exactly that every day Address the diverse experiences and needs among older adults and fight ageism Formed in September of last year the cabinet is an interagency Collaborative established to realize and institutionalize age-inclusive New York City through structural Legislative and systemic solutions more than 20 city agencies comprise the cabinet for older New Yorkers Covering various facets of services and resources including health housing public safety Social services and transportation You might have seen the op-ed in the Daily News this week kicking off older Americans month underscoring the need for the work of the cabinet to advance and age inclusive New York City The cabinet pushes systems change among services and access practices policies and legislation and innovation Today we will highlight several of the initiatives launched under the cabinet these initiatives cover education intergenerational work health and pedestrian safety So first as the anti-ageism movement starts with education Through the cabinet for older New Yorkers New York City public schools piloted an anti-ageism resource guide in 13 high schools in Brooklyn South The guide provides educational resources and tools on how students the next generation of our city's leaders can recognize ageism understand its impact and serve as change agents to advance inclusion about 1350 students are participating in this pilot reaching their families. Yes. Whoo. That's amazing That is impact and that is reach their families and communities through anti-ageism school-based education Now I would like to welcome principal Natasha Jack of the school for human rights in Brooklyn to talk more about her school's Experience since the resource guide was piloted earlier this year Good evening everyone. It's such an honor to be here as an educator To speak to you about the work that my young adults are doing at my high school And so according to the Brooklyn High School superintendent Michael prayer the most valued members of our communities are elderly And we must connect to our elders This is where the pilot initiated for the 13 high schools of Brooklyn South as a principal of an innovative high school in southern Brooklyn I understood the call and eagerly joined the pilots Our mission at the high school is centered on empowering our students to be innovative critical thinkers, but ultimately productive change agents of society We inspire to have all of our graduates be motivated life-loving learners who are equipped to be and build a more just and equitable world It was fundamental for me to have all 72 of my seniors engaged in this work And so our students have integrated the pilot into their economics course And my students are running a student-led podcast every Friday where they are talking about deep issues that impact older adults But also older adults, and we are really combating the last ism. We like to say of ageism The pilot for us promotes the understanding and it promotes empathy learning about ageism is helping my students understand the Experiences of older adults. This is further helping my seniors and my scholars develop a more positive attitude Towards aging and older adults which will improve the intergenerational Relationships according to one of my seniors Devonte He says I have experienced ageism at my job with older co-workers, and I didn't even know there was a name for it But I have also treated older people like my aunts my grandmother differently sometimes calling them old-fashioned because of their age, but this too is also a problem The pilot encourages critical thinking and fusing ageism into the economics course Intentionally is promoting critical thinking and is helping my students develop a more nuanced understanding of some of the complex social issues related to ageism such as credit Finances social security. This is helping my students to identify and challenge ages stereotypes and biases According to one of the teachers leading the pilot She says ageism is the last ism that has been allowed to be prevalent in society with no real outrage or pushback I think the only way to combat is to bring different age groups together to see both their successes and their struggles to build Comminality which will help tear down these stereotypes It forces this sense of social responsibility for our young adults Let's encourage and empower our scholars to take action to address age-related biases and discrimination So at the school for human rights as a principal we plan to go deeper We plan to look for more partners and we plan to continue to extend the learning and provide a platform to teach our students to learn About ageism and how they can help promote a more positive and inclusive society for all people of all ages So I thank you for listening Thank you for having me here today Thank you principal Jack and exactly what she just mentioned is what we'll be talking about in the next initiative In terms of sharing the struggles sharing the successes to build that community So the next initiative led by the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development Continues the anti-ageism movement by building community intergenerational connections through shared New York stories My New York story is a program that seeks to develop a network for community leadership problem-solving and support Grounded in multi-generational work and understanding with about a hundred participants including older adults and youth Across ten New York City housing authority development city-wide with co-located cornerstone programs and older adult centers Storytelling is used to cultivate intergenerational cohesion in these communities This initiative aims to dismantle stereotypes through intergenerational Engagement and relationship building and participants survey so far show positive changes in perception I would now like to introduce Jamari Reynolds who is a high school student participating in the new my New York story program Hello everyone My name is Jamari Reynolds and I am in 10th grade At Lehman High School in the Bronx, and I just turned 16 last week I've been a part of a my New York story Program at Eastchester not for a really long time, but I've been there enough to know like what we talk about and And through this program I've learned a lot from my older adults and my peers in Small groups we like to talk about our different life experiences like what they went through through school and what how What they went through during school and while I go through during school now so we compare differences The older adults shared how different education is how different education is compared to when they were in school and how I was Mentioned what it's like to travel to school like how MC is now from before. It was definitely a lot slower back I think I think we can definitely all agree This program definitely also told me about ageism. I learned about how it definitely exists in New York City and how lots of older adults go through it and They experience this oppression very often daily weekly monthly Occasionally I Also learned how to recognize it and how to address it which is really one of the biggest lessons I took away I enjoy being a part of this program and sharing stories with adults with other adults in my community I look forward to more exchanges with my older adults and more about my neighbors and learning their history. Thank you Thank You Jamari So now please welcome Mildred Gore who is a my New York story participant as well at the same site Good afternoon everybody Thank you very much for having us here and I'd like to Let you know that my name is Mildred Gore I am a member of Rain Eastchester Adult Center in the Bronx Where I'm also the secretary for the advisory Council my husband and I have been members of Rain older adult Center since 2014 when I retired and This and this June will be celebrating 24 years of a marriage Thank you. Thank you. I am also participating in my story program The stories we share highlight the Harlem experience We talked about Harlem then and now and the rich history of the neighborhood We shared stories about our legendary Apollo theater and the iconic Artists who got their start or were featured on the stage Apollo is a cultural institution, which we are excited to talk about From this experience. I actually Was very surprised about how kind our youth are to the older adults We hit it off as soon as we all met one another. We laughed we shared stories It has been a wonderful con it is wonderful to connect and relate to one another through this program and Just to be together as human beings and neighbors in the same community. I Have I have now forged a friendship with youth in my community, which I might not have had outside of this program Sharing stories and interacting with youth has changed my perspective on younger Generation and I have learned from them and vice versa. I am happy to be part of this experience I look forward to celebrating and reflecting on how they will collectively grow together And I wanted to just outline one special thing that let us all know that the youth and the elders Can be together my husband's 80 years old and he's on tiktok I'm not on tiktok and the young people had a laugh about that So thank you all very much. God bless you and hopefully this program will go forward. It is extremely needed So sidebar I'm so excited that Mildred shared that because she shared that earlier and I was totally gonna include that if she Wasn't going to include that so what I won't share is her husband's handle because The youth definitely took an interest in that so you thought you heard the punch line. There's a better punch line So to empower aging in place frontline health professionals recognize that older adult patients and caregivers may need Additional support and resources beyond health care to maintain their wellness the cabinet worked to address this by instituting a training and Conducting feedback sessions to raise awareness about existing community-based services Available for older New Yorkers so far more than 200 frontline health professionals were trained from the city's public health core comprised of community health workers from New York City Health and Hospitals and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene geriatricians and social workers also from H&H and DOHMH and the mayor's public engagement units public health educators I now would like to introduce Leticia Cisneros a community health worker Who's part of the public health core in adult medicine at Health and Hospitals Woodhull who took the training to share her takeaways? Hello, my name is Leticia Cisneros and I work for the Public Health Corp at the New York City Health Hospitals as a community health workers We work with a wide range of patients with a combination of medical and social needs Other patients can face challenges including scheduling, getting to appointments, food and financial insecurity and for in need for social support We help patients connect to their medical providers by setting up and showing them how to use my portal chart Assisting with scheduling appointments, arranging Transportation and helping them applying for government benefits and other resources It can be hard to find social support for older people Many need in-home support not only to assist with their medical needs and household activities, but also for a companionship to combat social isolation Undocumented patients have an even more difficult time getting these type of resources and support Our limiter in terms for the benefits that they can receive We found that the training it's been helpful with identifying resources to provide home care assistance to the aging population For example, one of four patients. It's a 60 years old woman With multiple health issues who recently lost her husband and emotional support Who used to help her a lot? We perform a home visit help We perform the visit home visit and we that make us to understand the social support that she needs And we was able to keep up with her She was unable to keep up with her medications and Regiment performing activities for daily living due to being unaware and feeling depressed We all know how hard it is to have a loss We was able to walk her through the process of getting home health aid services and Then she was approved for daily services and now she's feeling more stable. Thank you all Thank You Leticia now, please welcome Natasha Macintosh white community health worker Supervisor who works with Leticia at Woodhull to also share good evening cabinet members and all NYC agencies I think you would all agree with me that the word for tonight is collaboration and just ensuring that our aging population remains connected to resources in the community and that all Other departments are helping them to continue to remain connected to those resources That's one of the main things that we do here at health and hospitals is just Ensuring that they are able to navigate the various systems that they are connected to once they graduate our program that Leticia was speaking about one of the resources that we learned about during the training that we took with the older with the Services of the older adults that was especially helpful was the availability for services of case management in the home for the patient so that Patients and the older population can remain in home While they continue to age In general just remaining Just continuing to collaborate with the Department of Aging and learning about a range of available resources that we can continue to connect this Population to has been extremely helpful for us Our team here at health and hospitals is always learning about newer resources But sometimes it can be difficult to find those resources And just to have the option of connecting our patients to and it's just important for us to have some sort of Assistance to turn to so just the fact that we have the Department of Aging to reach out to has been super helpful for us Thank you so much Thank You Natasha Age inclusive older adult pedestrian planning is imperative as older New Yorkers age 60 plus comprised less than 20 percent of the city's Population yet account for more than 45 percent of pedestrian fatalities The New York City Department of Transportation is leading walkability audits and hosting feedback sessions with older adult center members Living in areas slated for vision zero work. I would now like to introduce Michael Fandell Member of the Carter burden luncheon club to talk about being part of the recent walking audit led by DOT Okay, good evening everybody My name is Michael Fandell And I've been a member of the Carter burden Center on East 74th Street for over 10 years. I Also retired from the NYPD after 20 years and was a New York City substitute teacher for 35 years My very first New York City marathon Was with its founder Fred LeBeau was in remission from brain cancer on Excuse me on marathon day The entire city becomes a room Where people locally internationally and from all walks of life share this space Similarly last week When the New York City Department of Transportation led a walkability tour in the neighborhood with myself and other older adult Center members every corner we turned and each area we covered became a room The room was filled with good feelings Flowing and deep appreciation for the strategies applied to enhance safety For pedestrians as well as bicyclists and motorists It reminded me of the famous beloved song from the Broadway musical South Pacific Some enchanted evening You may find a stranger across a crowded room touring the neighborhood and Providing feedback as community residents who walk these blocks and streets every day Help to inform how we can better navigate this crowded room and ensure we and all the strangers We may encounter as pedestrians remain safe. I am grateful to the Department of Transportation for leading the initiative engaging other older adults for input and enriching our experience while walking observing and relating I Appreciated the many more eyes and ears in the group during the walkability tour Recognizing that visuals are important realizing you have to make an estimate based on the count the light and observing the traffic calming devices The experience was memorable memorable and rewarding and before I say thank you I'll do an ad lib You knock my socks off. Thank you Thank You Michael after working with Michael for several days. I had a feeling he was gonna close with a joke, so I appreciated that one So so thank you and thank you to all of the speakers for sharing their Experiences of being part of this cabinet work on the ground And we also just recently launched a website at nyc.gov forward slash cabinet for older New Yorkers I would also like to express deep gratitude to all of the cabinet member agencies for their work every day In service of older New Yorkers and ensuring we truly are a city inclusive of all ages And while this concludes this portion of the program, please stick around as the mayor will be Sharing and speaking shortly. Thank you. I am deputy mayor and Williams Isam. I'm the deputy mayor Thank you for health and human services Which means that I have the best job in the city So there is a lot of interesting things about me I'm getting ready to celebrate my 31st wedding anniversary with my husband My 30 year old daughter just got married. I have three kids. I live in Harlem There's all these great things but the best thing about me is that I have had the pressure of most of my life to Take care of and to love and to live with right now my 92 year old mom miss Edna so Loving miss Edna means that I understand this issue more than you can understand right this woman came here from Trinidad and Tobago She was a single mom her the foundation that she has let and led for my brothers and I Really is the light that is the future of all the most beautiful things in my life And I know each one of us in here and so now is I'm a caretaker of her It just makes me filled up more and makes me know that this part of my life and to have her with me Makes me a better person a better wife a better mother and a better deputy mayor We all know that we have people in our life older adults who do that for us And this is why this issue is so important at this moment So when the commissioner came to me and said that she wanted to have a cabinet for older adults I couldn't have been more excited and so my goal tonight is just to thank you to tell you why this Interagency effort of all of us a whole of government effort because that's what the mayor always wants from us is to cut out Those silos and see people for who they are and see people for their humanity And so tonight that's what this is a celebration of so with that I think the most important thing that I want to do is I want to bring up our fearless leader and the person Who has had the vision for what New York City older adults should experience? And so it is my pleasure to bring up the commissioner of the Department of Agents. I call her LCV Commissioner Cortez Vasquez Lorraine Thank you. Thank you. I Was gonna say I'm LCV. Oh Thank you. Welcome to Gracie mansion Let me start by first thanking Mayor Eric Adams for opening his home to all of you tonight and Because he's a strong advocate for older workers and for older And Dorothy's son one of the ways that I one of I'm ad-libbing now, wait a minute But he always when he talks he always talks about his mother and how she was so central to his Well-being and all everything that he talks about it's about his mother and that was the insight that we had into how strong and advocate He is for older adults. So This is not just words for him. This is commitment and passion lifelong commitment and passion When he was borough president, I saw firsthand how he worked with older adults Norx and other of Centers and he helped Brooklyn Knights place a great program called age-friendly in place Brooklyn was a leader in age-friendly and we're really proud because just recently we Unveiled all of the work that has been done that he did in Brooklyn under age-friendly But now as mayor, I'm so proud to work with him to advance These practices across the city to create an age-inclusive city He has seen that vision as you saw during the presentations that weren't they amazing those presentations of those young people and older adults? one way or another Every agency has an effect on the lives of older adults and Mayor Adams Made a commitment to bring them all together And I never forget his words during when we launched the cabinet when he launched the cabinet Which was I'm counting on you to tell me what to do to make this a better city for older adults And those were his words So he created this cabinet to break silos as the deputy mayor said to identify gaps Streamline processes as he always says Collaborate and he always says upstream strategies and then to recommend legislation and policy agendas Making New York the model age-inclusive city with over 20 agencies on board the representative of those agencies every day keep us safe housed educated healthy and rich our cultural experiences and Also, you can see that the aging cabinet is the storyboards here and some of them are here So I want to thank them I want to thank my colleague and friend for more than 35 years that he's gonna be a grandfather And he's still here So you if every one of the members of this cabinet make this work possible Each one of them has made a commitment has taken the mayor's words to heart Since its creation in 70 in 1975 department for the age and relied on Community-based agencies to do this work. We don't do this work directly. We rely on partnerships today Many of those are still with us and our partners on the ground. Why? They know the neighborhood. They know the community. They know older adults. They know the music that they love They know the food that they want they know the dances that they want to do They know what they are and so we could not do this without our community partners Older adults are going to start outnumbering the younger population and We know that it is not a either or City, this is a city of all and so what we need to do is to make sure that we imagine a city That works for both and some of the projects that you talked we you heard this evening were about just that The experiences shared today are important The work would not have been possible without the support of the first deputy mayor She embraced this when she first heard about the cabinet Which was just created seven months ago and never would this be possible with the steady hand and support of our DM and She is a strong And of course none of this is possible with the man who lives in his this house and Who had the vision to go from age friendly to age inclusive? It is my honor to bring to you mayor Eric Adams Thank thank you so much and really thank all of you and the long friendship and relationship I have had with the commissioner for so many years and As I we were running for office I knew I had my commission of the Department of Aging and you know She was trying to think she was going to retire and I said you're not going anywhere You know you could you could hang that up You you have a job to do and that commitment and being thoughtful It is so important when we look at this cabinet and those of you who are here and part of the cabinet some of our elected officials That are here as well because that report that came out. I think two days ago that talked about the impact of loneliness and It's predeterminates to health and we have been talking about this in without team for a long time How what loneliness does in the equivalence of smoke in several packs of cigarettes a day? And we have to think differently about addressing the issue that many of our older adults are Experiencing, you know, many of them have family members that are no longer there Many of them are shut in for whatever reason they cannot travel It is it was important to me That as the commissioner stated that let's go out and find out from our older adults What it is to navigate this city they were here to make the city what it is and they cannot be Displaced or we cannot create a city that's so hip and cool that we don't understand Those who built the city in the first place and I don't know my mom used to tell me, you know that when I tell her You know, mommy, you know, you need to come in and move him with me. You're 80 something years old She said listen, I don't want you to see when my boo comes over, you know You know, and so let's not kid ourselves our older adults Still want to do things that are enjoyable. They want to go out. They want to be in the theater They want to move around our transportation system They want to learn how to use the various technologies that are available, you know, just because you move slower You are dealing with some ailments. That's because, you know, life has changed It does not mean the energy and the usefulness of one's existence Disappear at the same time and it's our role to make sure that we keep it going And I'll tell you something else as I conclude We need them more than ever Our young people really need that guidance and we have to be extremely Focused and intentional about how do we do an intergenerational Relationship between our young people and our older adults their wisdom is real You know, there's Whatever we are going through they have gone through it may be just a different time in a different moment But it's the same experience and that wisdom that knowledge that nurturing that caring particularly in an environment With many of our young people don't have that foundation at home Many of our oldest adults are really open arms and really want to contribute To the young people and the generations that is coming into being and they want to be active I got beat the other day by some of our older adults on pickleball. They You know, I got on the court thought I was gonna be all good And they looked at each other and they said we gonna wipe the floor with you young man And they did just that You know, so there's some real active things that we can do And so I just really want to thank the commissioner not tired entire team and the entire cabinet of the energy that you're bringing To this conversation and we really want to let the globe see what we are doing She cascaded throughout the entire country that as we progress in years We want to maintain the dignity and respect that we deserve because you know, I have my AAP card so, you know, I Know what it is and finally I want to say thank you to George Holtz who's here from emblem health George has sponsored so many things here We have so many events here and George has rarely been an amazing friend and partner You know, thank you so much for what you have done and what you will continue to do and all the spot Sponsors who participated but again, thank you so much for coming here and being part of this event. Thank you