Every year, we at the Hartford Foundation have a staff retreat. In years past we have focused on fairly conventional business team development activities such as Myers-Briggs personality tests and interpersonal communications training, but our retreat last week was real. “Real” in the sense in that we engaged in a team-centered activity that was in alignment with our mission to serve older adults.
This year, our current staff of fifteen was divided into four groups. Each group volunteered for a specific activity at the Carter Burden Center for the Aging in New York City. Two teams served lunch at the senior center and two teams delivered meals to older adults in their homes. My team elected to do the “Meals on Heels” option and while I have spent a good portion of my professional career doing home visits and working with older adults, I was changed by the experience.
I was changed by the learnings of my team. Our learnings sometimes reinforced what we knew: Older adults in New York City face unique hardships. But this become painfully real when we had to climb five flights of stairs to deliver a meal to a frail older man who jokingly asked us if we had brought our oxygen; he then pointed out his wheelchair that he uses to get around town which was next to the front door on the first floor of his walk-up building. Other learnings challenged stereotypes. This was the case when we delivered a meal to a vibrant and stunning soon-to-be 96 year old woman who was about to leave for her daily one-mile walk. Other learnings reinforced the importance of the work of the Hartford Foundation and our grantees. As I peered into disorganized apartments with medications strewn all over the kitchen, programs like Partners in Care’s medication management and Guided Care came to mind. Other home visits revealed older adults who would benefit from effective depression treatment such as provided by our project IMPACT.
I was also changed by the stories of my colleagues. Some of the stories I expected: one of my colleagues, who having previously worked in the field of aging, sat down on a stairwell and completed an intake on a older man (mind you, not on her list for meal delivery) to ensure he got plugged into the services at the Carter Burden Center. Other stories were more surprising: a colleague who initially expressed reservations, even apprehension, about volunteering later lead a Seder in the senior center. One staff person participated in an art group with older adults with dementia and learned new skills about engagement and relaxation to use as a caregiver for her own mother. Another colleague, inspired by the experience, pledged to take his teenage son to a local nursing home as an ongoing volunteer activity.
Sometimes, the work we do as grantmakers can remove us from the reasons we joined the Hartford Foundation in the first place: making life better for individual older adults all over this country. The experiences of the staff retreat made us think differently about ourselves, our colleagues, and older adults, and made us appreciate the importance of the work that our grantees and aging services providers do to enhance the health, well-being, and independence of older Americans. These experiences also made us want to volunteer again, and soon.