Creative Aging During a Time of Pandemic
We have been following the evolving coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, working closely with our stakeholders to enact plans of action that will help protect Arts for the Aging's vulnerable clients and their caregivers. Given the importance and effectiveness of social distancing to slow community transmission, we have made the difficult decision to suspend our current programs through March 31, 2020. Our staff is adapting practices and ensuring secure access to resources needed for potentially extended remote work. We are looking to virtual networking technology so we can continue to inspire optimism in creative aging. We will continue to monitor the situation in the days and weeks to come, and we'll stay in touch.
While it is heartbreaking that Arts for the Aging programs will not be available to support and uplift the lives of older, frailer, and lonelier adults --- which also adds an additional burden to caregivers --- we share a priority to keep communities safe. We also believe it is important to provide a safety net to those at the heart, soul, and frontlines of this organization --- our gifted faculty of 26 teaching artists who are our practitioners.
Read more here including ideas for artful caregiving and self-care you can do at home.
In hard times, the arts bring us joy, comfort, and hope—like these "Lovely Ladies," made in teaching artist Carol Siegel's workshops with seniors at Arlington Adult Day Services Center, to help keep spirits up during this time of community care:
P.S. - The Centers for Disease Control has lay-friendly information for individuals and organizations, and with regularly updated FAQs available here. The information in this blog post is not all-inclusive nor is it offered as professional medical advice. Please seek advice from a professional healthcare service provider as and when necessary.
10 Incredible Things Your Support Provided
Our donors have swept us off our feet! Here are TEN amazing moves your gift to Arts For The Aging made for local seniors this year:
Thank you for being our partner during 2019, our Year In Movement! Won’t you help AFTA tango into 2020? Even small gifts create enormous possibilities.
Make an end-of-the-year donation here:
Help AFTA Tango Across the Finish Line | Created by ARTS FOR THE AGING-MARYLAND INC
Help us Close Our Year in Movement with Your Donation by December 31
Did you know that dance can lower the risk of dementia? That is why 2019 was Arts for the Aging's Year in Movement. As teaching artist and singing actor Peter Burroughs says, "Dancing is allowing joy to escape from our bodies. Therefore, we can dance with our eyes if necessary. We cannot focus on what we can't do, we just need to keep dancing with whatever works!" Please contribute to our campaign to keep seniors and their care partners dancing, long after we tango into 2020. A donation of $175 pays for one workshop for 20 older adults. And every donation level makes a difference. Plus, if you donate as part of this end-of-the-year campaign, the Cafritz Foundation will match your donation, doubling your impact. A donation today will help us reach our goal of raising $30,000 by December 31, 2019. Thanks to your support, the lives and health of older adults in the Greater Washington D.C. region are enhanced through the power of the arts. Please help us tango from 2019 into 2020 with enough resources to serve the growing population of seniors in the Greater Washington, D.C. region. Click here to make your donation today.
Collaboration with Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery
The spirit of legendary American singer Marian Anderson was brought to life by members of Arts for the Aging's artistic faculty, ROMEZ3arts, in the halls within the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery during this vibrant exhibition workshop about the remarkably ravishing, dignified, humble, and revolutionary contralto. "See Me" at the Smithsonian engages older adults with memory loss and their care givers in the art of slow-looking and conversation around masterworks in their various museum collections. Arts for the Aging partners with the Smithsonian by bringing additional artistic modalities to inspire music-making and dance-making evoked by the art and the stories they illuminate. We welcomed staff from the World Bank who joined us to engage with philanthropic recipients, like Arts for the Aging, of their generous Community Connections Campaign. Starting in the gallery, museum educators Vanessa Jones and Amy Lewis Castine sparked conversation, and ROMEZ3arts (Anamer Castrello, Peter Joshua Burroughs, Carlos Cesar Rodriguez) evoked singing around key works in the show about Ms. Anderson. Then we moved to the museum’s magnificent indoor courtyard where we sang, danced, and felt the joy of connecting through the arts. In a moving moment during the workshop, Eleanor Roosevelt’s historic 1939 letter to the Daughters of the American Revolution was read aloud, which lambasted and ended her membership there when the DAR refused Ms. Anderson a performance at Constitution Hall because of her race. It paved the way for the glory of her singing at the footsteps of the Lincoln Memorial. Together we acknowledged the importance of the shared beauty of our differences in this melting pot we call, to quote Ms. Anderson’s astute lyrical change, the “Land where ‘Thy’ fathers died.” View a clip from the program here
