0:02 Welcome to Advance the Dream, our weekly community chat, where we celebrate legacy makers and family heroes who are actively advancing the dream in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We talk about health, challenges, highlights and heroes in an intergenerational fashion in hopes that his legacy of hope and equality continue to live on. This weekly series, powered by the Force for Health Network, is aired live on Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn at 8 a.m. Pacific Time, 11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.
0:32 Then shared afterwards at AdvanceTheDream.com. Now, let's meet our hosts, Force for Health Network co-founders, Dr. Robert Giglio and Lucy Howell, alongside our National Director, Joshua Williams Jr. as we dive into this week's topic. Good morning, everybody. This is April 6th, and it is our 10th episode of Advance the Dream this year. So welcome. My name is Lucy Howell, and I am one of the co-founders of the Force for Health Network. I'm joined here with my partner out of Pennsylvania, Dr. Robert Gillio.
1:11 And our national partner on advanced dream project co-founder I mean executive director of you do matter a fabulous organization uh mr josh williams out of florida or new new orleans out of florida this morning good morning yes Awesome. Awesome. So this is a weekly platform. It's interactive. So if you are watching live on Facebook or YouTube or LinkedIn at the Force for Health Network, then go ahead and feel free to add comments. We will try and incorporate the ones that we think are appropriate that we want to go ahead and pull into the discussion.
1:52 And it's really designed to carry on the legacy of of Dr. Martin Luther King in an effort to reach equity and equality and address the built-in and social barriers and disparities of health and wealth. So I probably have said that more eloquently in the past, but we open up this week. It's my birthday yesterday. Happy birthday. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. So kind of like the thoughts that are going on in my head as we open up this weekend and then we'll go around the table. It's National Minority Health Month.
2:40 And so I will be showing some videos a little bit later about this month. Concept called social determinants of health. I know it's a buzzword and if you know it, you know it if you don't you should Because the barriers are real so we'll go ahead and talk about that you've got a special guest in-house today that will be joining us at a quarter past the hour and he represents the the Aging Council space from New Orleans and How We've got Howard Rogers coming up shortly. And since our topic today is really barriers, reflections, and seniors, I had a mind shift yesterday.
3:34 Instead of feeling like, oh my God, I can't believe I'm 55. I'm like, wow, I am 55. Wow. And I am going to embrace and take care of this body and just, you know, make sure that my family has access. And I'm really leaning on my family too. I mean, I'm really like, Hey, Glenn. Do you know what your blood type is? Do you know what your cholesterol levels are? So I'm just really kind of going to lean in this month and make sure that I can answer certain questions about the people in my life. That's kind of how I'm opening up this segment.
4:11 Tomorrow is World Health Day, and I'm so, so, so excited to finally, finally launch into play you know, our quarter, our second quarter season of Reality Health Games. So we've got a bunch of new challenges that we'll be announcing tomorrow. But yeah, it's a busy time. It's a busy weekend. But April is a time of opening and birth. And I'm excited to be here. Those are my opening thoughts. How about you, Rob? Well, you talk about social determinants of health. And it's been a chronic thing where I hate that term.
4:51 And I look at things where as you age, people are determining that maybe you are not able to do certain things, or maybe there are barriers where you really can't. And I think as we deal with disparity issues, minority health issues, the term that the sociologists and medical anthropologists have used for the last decade or so is social determinants of health. And it's what you should look up, what you should Google, what you should hashtag as you follow all this. but I'd like you to think in terms of social barriers to health.
5:23 To me, the word determinant is much too strong. I look at the background that various folks have come from, and if we were to look at social determinants of education, and I look at my background, that of my immigrant grandparents and my father with very little education, and now with three kids with advanced degrees in the next generation, all with advanced degrees and doing well. It's not been a determination, but it's been overcoming barriers. And it might have been easier for me to overcome those barriers with certain of my ethnicity, skin color, neighborhood, schools, and other things than others.
6:04 But they were not determinants. There were barriers that had to be overcome. So as we listen about aging, what barriers are in place, especially for people from a minority health situation that have overcome other barriers in their life what diseases are they coming into aging with because of barriers to screening tests and things earlier in life. So I'm looking forward to discussing that with our guests or at least learning from him. Lucy, you're muted. I apologize. You're also caring for two seniors.
6:44 You're a senior and you're caring for two seniors. You're sandwiched right in And I understand, you know, the barriers and determinants, you know, a difference because you're absolutely right. They're not determinants. They're barriers to figure out how to go around. They're not going to determine your outcome. But yeah. So and Josh, what's your opening thoughts for today, April 6th? You say social determinants of health, not say barriers. I would say obstacles. Ah, okay. We have been dealing with several obstacles as it relates to not only just multi-generational opportunities for older people, but I mean just opportunities in general.
7:31 As we continue to try to, I guess you would say, coming from this side, ease the pain. that are associated with a lot of elderly and adults that may not quite understand exactly what we are doing, but actually have a interest into what we're doing and trying to play that part or play that medium role. I'm so glad that we have the opportunity to have an individual such as Howard Rogers, who has been working with seniors, you know, it's almost his entire life. I actually learned a lot on my ability to incorporate multi-generational training for seniors and kids through Howell Rogers.
8:16 He was one of those individuals that I had actually met early on in my life. And I saw how he was actually working with seniors and I kind of developed just a net Just being around him of actually doing some of the same stuff that he was actually doing in the communities. I'm glad to have him. He's going to share some things with us that are very, very important as it relates to his experiences with seniors. And I look forward to hearing him and still learning from him as we move on today. Yeah, no, I think that that's great.
8:50 I think that this video that I'd like to show that kind of sets the stage for then the discussion for the rest of the show was a video that we co-produced with some partners out of Case Western in conjunction with University Hospital. And this was a project that we worked with to address infant mortality, right? And so Cuyahoga County happened to get to boast. I mean, this is a bad thing to be known for, but it had the highest infant mortality rate in the country. And that's the last thing that the state of Ohio or Cuyahoga County wanted to be known for.
9:36 So there was this grant that was issued to all of the government resource center and got dispersed to the universities. And we happened to be hired by one of the teams to do this project. And it was a virtual reality, augmented reality, learning management system. But we got a chance to interview many of the leaders and really put forth this implicit bias type of, you know, challenge slash training. And one of the videos that was produced did a really, really good job at addressing this. So I'm going to go ahead and pull that up right here for a moment, and then we can talk about it.
10:18 And then hopefully your guests will be arriving shortly in the background. And let's go with that. So I am just coming into our learning management system at the force for health. And there is the course that's called Med equity health, we continue to host it for free, even though the grant ran out, right, that's kind of a little bit of my pet peeve when so much effort goes into something that's grant funded and then the grant ends and then everything dies. And so it's nice that we got to partner with some folks that allowed us to extend the information and all of the great work that was done.
11:09 But let's go ahead and get this played. do I remain shocked and frankly mystified that black babies in Cuyahoga County are still dying at more than five times the rate of white babies. We know that social determinants of health play a significant role in this disparity. But as I introduce this journey, this journey that centers around social determinants of health, I also want to take a moment to highlight and emphasize the need for attention to fatherhood as a social determinant of health. That's right, fathers and fatherhood as a social determinant of health.
12:08 Generally, social determinants of health are the conditions or circumstances in which people are born, live, learn, work, play, pray, age and ultimately die. It's important to note that these conditions or circumstances that people find themselves in are largely shaped by the distribution, equitably or not, of money, power and resources at the global, national and local levels. The differences in health outcomes are striking between communities with excellent social determinants of health compared to those with poor social determinants of health, such as unstable housing, low income, substandard education, food insecurity, and safe neighborhoods.
12:45 All of these factors ring especially true as it relates to outcomes associated with infant mortality and reducing the infant mortality rates in Calgary County. As I alluded to earlier, I believe that one of the missing focal points to address the infant mortality crisis in Niagara County is fathers. Many times men are only vaguely conceptualized as a social determinants of health factor and when they are, it's mostly with negative connotations. But I'll share a few facts. A father's presence or absence in the mother's life is inextricably associated with family poverty and that father's income as a contribution to the household is directly associated with improved child health.
13:29 A father's presence and engagement in the household is also positively associated with enhanced childhood development. And just as men and or fathers are proven critical to a child's health, their presence, when positive, is also a critical factor in reducing toxic stress in expectant mothers. So when thinking about fathers as a social determinant of health, Men or fathers are critically associated with all three elements of the foundation of improved child health and toxic stress prevention. One, stable and responsive relationships.
14:01 Two, safe and supportive environments. And three, appropriate and improved nutrition. As it happens, these same three themes are also relevant for optimal reproductive health. So addressing social determinants of health is clearly important and is becoming much more of a focus and a priority for a variety of healthcare stakeholders. Thank you for listening. And I hope you come away from this journey with a better understanding of how the social determinants of health and fatherhood are crucial to lowering the rates of infant mortality, as well as moving the needle on institutional racism.
14:35 Thank you. Um, that actually, to be honest, was not the video that I had intended to play. It's the next video, but I let it play because again, it's part of the conversation and that project really did pull tons of stakeholders to the table. Um, Silas Buchanan there was an expert that was pulled to the table that really had an expertise of reaching into the faith-based institutions and And so if we have time, and I see that Howard has joined us, so that's wonderful. If we have time, maybe towards the end, since it is National Minority Health Month and since Social Determines Barriers of Health is a main push right now out of the Office of Minority Health, maybe we'll go ahead and watch it at the end.
15:28 But I certainly want to go ahead and leave most of the time to talk about Howard's story and what issues he sees. So I'm going to pass the baton to you, Josh. Can you please introduce your guest? And you're muted. I have the extreme honor of introducing a man that has actually continued to show his true bloodline for serving others. Howard Rogers is the executive director of the New Orleans Council on Aging in New Orleans, Louisiana, whom he has continued to provide services and support to our elderly across the community since Hurricane Katrina.
16:21 Howard has been working continuously trying to make sure that seniors have an opportunity to engage themselves with activities, making sure that they are taken care of as it relates to the heat. He has been doing a plethora of things in the New Orleans community, and not only New Orleanians have seen that, the country has seen it. Howard has received the People's Health for New Orleans. We are so proud of him, and I would also not leave that introduction out without saying that he's a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated.
17:04 Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to welcome Howard L. Rogers. Well, good morning. Good morning, and thank you for allowing me this opportunity to address you guys on this very important topic. And thank you, Josh, for that introduction. A little bit about myself. I'm Howard Rogers. I'm the Executive Director of the Wallace Council on Aging, Area Agency on Aging. We are, basically, our charge is providing aging services, aging services, to the 80 plus individuals 80 000 plus individuals over the age of 60 in the city of new orleans I started off this particular I guess you could say lifelong journey in 1977 when I assisted a young lady in starting a senior citizen center in my neighborhood carolton hollygrove center And I was with her for about six years.
18:07 And then I went to go work for the Council on Aging back around 1984, 85, as I was given the opportunity to take all of the senior centers, which there are 14 now in the city of New Orleans, and collectively Utilize my talents in providing them with services and training to enhance their activities towards the seniors. Left there, went back to Carrollton as the executive director. for about nine years where we also ran a licensed adult daycare facility. One of the things in the continuum of care, and you all know this, is that as the person ages, their particular not only health, but Other obstacles in their particular path, so therefore they need some assistance because what our main goals is to keep that individual in their community as long as they can.
19:11 So they can be productive parts to their community. Unfortunately, in our society, as I always call it, the throwaway society, even when you get to a certain age, we have a tendency, just like when we go to fast foods, after we finish, we throw it away. And in some instances, not only in this country, but as well, when we finish with certain individuals, we place them aside, we throw them away. So, you know, it's my opportunity and my duty and actually it's been my passion to work with and try to enhance and keep folks alive and around as long as we can.
19:54 After I left Carrollton, I've been at the Council on Aging since 1999 as the executive director. And it's been fun. In those 24 years, not only Uh, have I've had the opportunity to make some definite changes here in the city of New Orleans and state of Louisiana in terms of aging services. But I've also been involved with working with national councils. I was on the board of the national council on aging at one time, and also on the board of the national association of social workers. So, uh, recently came back last week from the American society on agents conference.
20:37 Which was held in San Francisco. So we tried to, and I also make it a point to bring my staff so they can see what's going on around the country and innovative services for the elderly. Now, one of the things that is, you know, listening to your introductions and what you're talking about today, is that one of the things that, and it's my philosophy, is that we have to look at our aging community. A lot of times people believe or they have this conception that they're not gonna get old. And it's interesting when you go and address a group of individuals, especially when I had the opportunity to address the Louisiana representatives one time about adult daycare And they kept saying, well, you people, you people.
21:38 And I had to remind them that half of them up there were over the age of 60. So it's basically, it's not just you people, it's you too. And that's what happens. Individuals forget that they are aging also. And we all know what happens when you stop aging. And that's one of the things that we're trying to hold off on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you are definitely right. We do forget that. And sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I'm quickly reminded, too, that you, too, will be old one day. I just wanted to quickly try to chat with you about, you know, we we met and.
22:29 An older person that we both had the respect for, the honor for, who lived to be 100 years old in the name of Realution. Yes. Who just passed last year right after her 100th birthday. You know, Real was one of those individuals who were one of the first nurses at Dillard. during that time, and it was Black nursing in 1945. I wanted you to talk a little bit about that because your mom was in her class. Right. As they say, Rhea knew me before I knew myself. Her and my mother were in the first graduating class of Dillon University School of Nursing, 1945.
23:13 And I constantly remind myself of her being a pioneer in that particular aspect. And because of what I saw in her and how she worked with people over the years, and also my father as being a public high school coach and teacher, physical education here in the city of New Orleans, my brother and I both picked up, I guess you could say, from them our particular story to enhance and go on and work with other individuals. Rhea not only was a pioneer in working with the health as a nurse, but also Rhea gave back to the community And in her later years, she was on my board of directors.
24:11 So she ended up coming full circle, coming back to helping the senior community. She was an inspiration and a very good friend. And every time I pass her house, I always think about her. But going back then, going back into the 40s and 50s, one of the things that especially they had to do, not only did they have to be able to show their professionalism, but they had to show their professionalism, unfortunately, with the disguise of racism that prevailed during the 40s and 50s, even up until the 60s.
24:55 So they were able to provide this professionalism and to assist them working with the elderly population. I'm curious, because you just got back from a national conference. I mean, what keeps you up at night? Well, one of the things that, again, going back to what I said earlier, in 2030, that is just phenomenal. six years from now 30 of the population of this country will be over the age of 60. so therefore as I tell people it's a growth industry we have to be able to look at and uh have the opportunity to uh to work with this aging population uh right now one of the problems that we have not only in this particular part of the country, but the entire country itself is that we can't find individuals to work in healthcare.
26:04 We have a shortage of nurses. We have a shortage of doctors. We have a shortage of individuals who would work in nursing homes or rehabilitation facilities. So we have to figure out a way how to enhance that workforce going forward. What will happen is we'll have, and it is happening now, we have caregivers taking care of caregivers. We have seniors taking care of seniors. So we have to be able to get to that younger generation and inform them, yes, you will get old. One of these days you're gonna wake up and you're gonna notice that little gray hair.
26:45 And so not only do you need to work with us now, but you also need to prepare for yourself. you know, Rob and I, and I know he wants to jump in here. I mean, that's why we're doing what we're doing. You hit it on the head. It's this gap of culturally empathetic, diverse health workforce, right? Whatever that might be, whether it's a community health worker, you know, whether it's nurses, whether it is in-home care, you got the baby boomers, right? I'm Gen X, right? We're the small generation, but you got the baby boomers, you know, just all all commanding care now, right?
27:27 And we're all on advisory councils all over the board. So that's your number one fear. And what keeps you up at night is the support structure in and around your space. Rob, what were you going to say? I'm sorry. You're mute. Um, I just want to clarify something. You said 30% or 60% of our population will be. 30% of our population. If it was 60%, we would be in a deep. Our producer missed that. We got that. Right. But this I'm thinking Sarah's the role for health literacy of a senior. or someone who is preparing to become a senior, we see as a thing we're trying to do with our senior force.
28:20 Can you be as resilient as possible and as good a shape as possible before natural aging continues to take over? Can your family become health literate and be able to take care of your needs, even if there's not enough healthcare workers? Can a teenager help lay out the medicines for a grandparent? And can technology potentially be used with things like... Uh, telehealth things like monitoring, uh, I'm monitoring my mother-in-law with Alexa, with her permission, cuz she lives alone in case she falls again, those types of things.
28:57 Any thoughts on that with health literacy for the person, the family, and also comment on the use of technology in health care? Well, it's nice that you brought that up. We had our first experiences with telehealth during the pandemic because since a number of hospitals and clinics limited individuals coming in for appointments, we started to see the growth of telehealth. Unfortunately, there's a digital divide when we talk about telehealth and technology. The population that I serve have a hard time sometimes opening up their iPhone or their Android.
29:43 And so, in fact, I had a little problem trying to get into this chat room today. OK, so that just tells you a little bit part of the digital divide. You know, we need to, you know, in that terms, yes, we can. We need to educate individuals, especially over the age of 60, how to use technology to assist us. And yes, their family can be part of their healthcare. In fact, in some instances, their family is their only healthcare provider outside of their doctors and their nurses because they're the only ones who they can rely on.
30:29 Here in Louisiana, there is a program with the Department of Health and Hospitals where they will provide additional financial resources for individuals who can assist in taking care of a relative or a dear friend over the age of 60. Unfortunately, that particular program has a waiting list of over 3,000 individuals. And that waiting list has been like that for the last five years. All right. So, you know, it depends upon, again, well, it depends upon the regions. It depends upon the region of the country where if that particular state legislature or individual city and their governing bodies provide enough additional resources, especially financial resources, so that individuals would be able to care for a loved one at home.
31:44 The digital divide, and unfortunately, as we see, the goal. He who has the goal makes the rules. If you are able to provide more of these resources for people, then you'll start to see alleviation of some of these problems. Hopefully, even on the federal level that we can, and we've been, when I say we, members of various aging organizations around the country. have been lobbying our federal representatives to enhance those services for seniors. Right now, we're going through the process of the reauthorization of the Older Americans Act.
32:29 The Older Americans Act was responsible for bringing us Medicare and also setting up the aging network around the country back in the 60s. It has to be reauthorized every five years, so it is going through a reauthorization period now. One of the main parts of that which aging social advocates are trying to enhance is to provide additional nutritional services. uh in other words meals on wheels and other uh various activities where individuals can get a a decent meal a day we in in this country we live in a food desert uh we have seniors who live either independently or they're staying with a relative because of their financial resources, but they don't have enough financial resources to provide nutritional benefits for them on a daily basis.
33:40 In other words, for some people, they only get one meal a day instead of three meals a day. And nutrition is part of the system that keeps us. If we can't eat, we get sick. If we get sick, we got to go to the hospital. And now we're burdened on the health care system. What were some of the innovations or the themes that were coming out of the national conference? Well, you know, one innovation and I spoke to the young lady about this this week is that there is a movement to get churches and pastors in churches to identify those individuals in their congregation who either have the first stages of dementia or either the first stages of Alzheimer's.
34:39 And try to have some intervention in the beginning so that they can get some assistance as the disease progresses. That was one thing that I took back from that. Another one, again, is going back to utilizing technology. to enhance the caregiving activities of those caregivers who are working with their loved ones. Going back to what Dr. Roberts said earlier, how he monitors his mother through Alexa. So that was a demonstration on using that type of technology to monitor people over a distance. And it seems to be pretty good that it works.
35:33 But again, going back to what I said earlier, we have to figure out a way how to get rid of this digital divide and get seniors to trust technology. You know, that's one thing that I'm sorry, you can come right after me, but that's one thing that we were working on I've had the opportunity to work with some of your seniors over there at the New Orleans Council on Aging. And one of the things that I found out at the location was that the seniors are interested in technology. But, you know, due to the fact that the knowledge of computers are not there, it takes a little more time to work with them.
36:21 Some people say that they're impatient. I don't call it impatient. I call it just don't know exactly how to deal with it. So we have to be more patient with them. What we're trying to do at the Force for Health is actually bring some innovation with technology programs that will assist them. But the first thing we have to do is get them to utilize that equipment and not be afraid of it. That's right. And that's the biggest hurdle or obstacle, once again, that I found out that we had with them is that they're afraid to use it.
36:53 They're frustrated if they can't get it to do what they want to do. So they leave it alone. So it's going to take us to actually do some more time sitting and holding hands of that. I think, though, Josh, you do a great job with the holding hands. You have an innovative program where you put the teenager right into the hand. You have your training course. But I think part of this training is for that teenager or for that middle aged person like Lucy or older person like me to have the skills and then sit with my mother-in-law and facilitate that telehealth visit with her.
37:28 And so you have the teenager mentor, the senior, have the teenager or young adult trained to be a force for health, not just for themselves, but for their senior. And to be able to interact, be that bridge till they get comfortable with things. We also, you know, have this whole senior force thing where those that are able have a whole series of resources that they can access at no cost. So there's no barriers. And I'd love to, I'd love to, you know, with your 14 senior centers, it would be fun to test out and see if there'd be an interest in putting together a New Orleans senior force, little online community, addressing isolation and teaching some of these skills like Josh and Lucy were just showing with, say, smartphone basics.
38:13 Any thoughts on that, sir? Well, actually, we have a good friend of ours by the name of Nick Harris who operates a program at Dillard University where he has his students who are able to go out into the community and we've utilized them to go to the centers to work with seniors to teach this technology and try to enhance this digital divide, not enhance it, but in terms of trying to narrow the digital divide. That's one thing. One of the other ones that we've started during COVID is a program called Bingo Size, where we have virtual bingo and exercise at the same time.
39:06 It is a program that we were able to move forward with after the pandemic was declared over with. And we're still teaching bingo size with seniors. We also have a another program that we're trying to more or less introduce soon where we will be able to have a limited number of tablets that we're going to give seniors. And with that, we're going to look at trying to start more or less chat sessions where we can have them talk to various individuals about either finances, housing, health through this.
40:03 So we're moving into that direction and hopefully with the help of folks like Josh and Nick Harris and other individuals I've been able to call upon over the years, to try to put some of these ideas that I'm trying to advance. Hopefully, it'll work. So unfortunately, everything takes time. And we just have to just keep at it. I've been keeping at it for 47 years. I've been working with seniors. And I tell everybody, I started off as a young person. And I've grown old. working with seniors, all right, which is, you know, for me, it's been a lifelong journey.
40:53 It's been an experience, but it's been a very grateful experience. I was wondering if you thought that, well, first of all, I bring this up because what I've just absolutely fallen in love with is how Josh has integrated this multi-generational project, this concept of this legacy bookmaker project, where we do actually get to match up either volunteers or family members who just want to honor one of their seniors in their lives. And so we've got this project that will be launching this quarter.
41:32 And I just did the beta with this project with one of my clients. She was 85 years old, right? And so to be able to take a client over the course of 10 weeks and have them go back and actually reflect back on what the first quarter of their life was, you know, the first 25 years and then taking that quarter and then, you know, quartering that out. So where did you grow up zero to six years old? Where were you when you were eight to 12 years old, you know, high school, young adult, And I literally thought I saw like dendrites, brain dendrites flashing off of my client's brain because A, the joy, the challenge of even just like, wait a minute, wait a minute.
42:18 I got this. I got this. It was almost like a workout. Like my husband trains her physically. And I felt like I took her through just as much of a challenge, right? Mentally. to go through and do that. So we're very excited about bringing this type of program. So if you're interested in that, let me know. But the other thing that I wanted to just get your opinion on was, how do you think your seniors would react to a little fun competition? For example, I'm very good friends with our Pima Council on Aging.
42:55 Right. And like I said, I turned 55 yesterday. I don't feel like a senior. Thank you. I had dinner with I had lunch with my dad yesterday and he's 78. And he said, you know what? I was 55 when I retired. And I got to travel the world with your mom and she passed away a year later, you know, and that was just shocking to me. But so I come back to, you know, how can we kind of like spur up? And that's what Rob and I are trying to do with this reality health games. I think it would be really fun.
43:28 One of our advisors, actually our national advisors was the former secretary of aging for the state of Pennsylvania, right? So this whole stay in place thing, Very important. This whole intergenerational connection, very important. Fraud prevention, financial fraud prevention was another big thing. But, you know, there's Senior Olympics. But can we, like, find a little fun hybrid virtual challenge from aging center to aging center to see if we can get folks to move, learn, serve, and earn as a team?
44:02 Team record. Yeah. And then go up against the other markets. What do you think? OK, well, I mean, you're on the right track. You know, one of the advantages that we have here in New Orleans and especially as the South is that guess you could say historically uh especially in new orleans we uh always remember uh our grandparents and our aunties and uh our play aunties was your your mama's good friend that we called and you know and we still and you know we still bring them into the circle of friends and we celebrate them and they in turn celebrate us.
44:52 Now, when you say competition, next month, well, in May, we have what's called Senior Fest. and we have over we have all the 14 centers participate along with anybody over the age of 60 that can fit to the uno arena so I call it organized chaos over a thousand individuals uh there but we have uh different uh vendors and we also put on a talent show and with the talent show we have the centers to compete against each other we give them a theme And they, in turn, go out and come up with different costumes or the music for that theme.
45:36 And they compete for a prize, for a monetary prize, but also for the opportunity to be able to brag to everybody else that, hey, XYZ Senior Center came in first place, and we beat those in second place. So you're on the right track. One of the things that you said earlier and something that I thought about and I started to do early on in my career, I would sit down with a video camera and with seniors and I just asked them to tell me their life story. Exactly, exactly, exactly. And then to be able to convert that into something that's tangible, the fact that we were able to.
46:21 So I learned more about my mom prepping for her eulogy. than I did when she was here. So that's why I'm so passionate about taking advantage of getting these kids connected to their seniors so that there's a transfer of knowledge. But there's also just that connection. If these younger kids can help, you know, their seniors just connect digitally so that when you give them that iPad, that tablet, they're not afraid of it. They know exactly where to go. Right. So because a lot of seniors, my dad, you know, he doesn't want to ask for help.
46:59 And if you offer him help, typically he'll deflect it because he just doesn't want to. to be, you know, Rob did us a very good senior for- Independence. Everybody wants their independence. Absolutely. All right. I even, you know, I'm sorry to cut you off, but, you know, one of the things, and all of us here are going to face it one day, that's when somebody decides to take your car keys away from you. Or move them. Or move them. One of the aha moments of Rob's Senior Force Basics was they like structure.
47:36 So you're going to go in there thinking you're cleaning up and reorganizing and they're going to go crazy. Right? Right. Exactly. You know, I knew that this segment would go by like this and we're already six minutes to the top of the hour. And I want to reserve this for you. advancing the dream, let's pull it back, right, to the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King. How do you feel you advanced the dream? And how do you feel Dr. Martin Luther King would think of the state of the union now with what he wished and hoped for us?
48:14 Well, I hope that, and it's my thought, that being able to serve seniors, those individuals who have gone through that very tumultuous time since their birth in the 20s, 30s, or actually when they became adults in the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s up until now, that I've been able to uh work with them to do two things one remember the past but prepare for the future and you know I think that is uh that is one of the things that we that we have to do uh you know I'm a my first degree is in history and there is a thing if you don't know your history you're apt to repeat it so we have to be able to learn and that's where the intergenerational part comes in.
49:12 If we can teach all that, just think about collectively. As Josh said about Reolution, she was 100 years old. I have a number of friends of mine that are in the 90s and they are 100. And, you know, just to sit there and listen to them and get them to tell me their life story. I pick up some tidbits that I could utilize for myself. And so just think about the wonder of a kind. That's one of the things that we try to do. We have started programs and we've been using programs. with Xavier University School of Pharmacy, LSU School of Nursing, and Dillard University School of Nursing, where we have those students go into the centers and talk to the seniors, not only providing a service like free blood pressure checks and also looking at their medication, but for them to get the opportunity to sit down and listen to some wisdom and also the training on how to work with individuals of different ages.
50:20 So when they become professionals in that field, they won't have that. When they're the pharmacist at Walgreens, they'll know how to talk to Ms. Jones. They'll know how to, you know, Ms. Jones is saying that she has XYZ ailment, but she's afraid to go to the doctor. You know, they can give her some comfort and inform her that you can use this medication, but you need to go to your doctor and get them over that scare. Do you think Dr. Martin Luther King would be proud of how far we've come, or do you feel like he would be disgruntled?
50:56 No, I think he would be proud of how far we've come, but he would also say that we still have far to go. That's right. He always said, I might not be with you when you reach the goal, but we will take it along together. So just to kind of recap a couple of things. be cognizant on the fact that one third of the population will be in the senior space and that we need more caregivers now. And where I really see a lot of that, I really see the retired teachers, retired nurses, that whole kind of 50 to 70 year old space can really still play a very active role.
51:49 In that. And so I'd like to see kind of some activation. They can. They can. But you know, sometimes I get this, I don't want to be around them old people. Well, you know. Right. You know, you're going to say, well, I don't want to be around them old people. Wait a minute. You're 85 years old. You don't want to be around them old people. I would. I was on a meeting yesterday and it was about 20 businesses and it was with our large Pima community college. And it was the fitness and health program. And they were showing up all types of stats on, you know, the types of jobs and occupations, community health and everything that can kind of span up out of that.
52:28 And, you know, I was urging them to have senior specificity, you know, because it does take a slightly different skilled set of to be compassionate, empathetic, and to have the patience, right. To work with seniors. And so, okay. So we've got that, you know, there's a major, major digital divide, um, when it comes to seniors. So how can we facilitate that? Um, and, uh, remember the past, but prepare for the future. And I, and I didn't write down the other banner, but, um, I'm going to officially, uh, challenge you into a, uh, New Orleans, Tucson State College Challenge, if you'll accept it.
53:14 And we'll go ahead and talk about that later. But I think it would be fun to spark up some market to market, you know, virtual health challenges that intersect technology, science and health and intergenerational knowledge transfer. That's really kind of what that's all about. Final thoughts, Rob. You know, you said we have a long way to go. And I think paraphrasing King, faith is taking the first step when you don't know where the stairway is going. But I think we have to do our best efforts at taking those first steps and look forward to taking a few of those with you in a follow-up if you care to.
53:59 Josh. All right. Thank you, Hal, once again for your time and attention in this matter. Working with seniors has been a godsend for me because it got me to appreciate in which I have come. So I will continue to pledge myself. We talked about Rhea and her great gracious, you know, me really being around her. really developed and increased my love to make sure that seniors were given their flowers early before late. So I'm very pleased. And like I said, we are going to meet each other again as it relates to trying to continue to enhance our seniors.
54:42 We're looking forward to working with some of the centers there. And we will be getting in touch with you about trying to implement some of the things in which the force for health have in store right now that we know that you guys will love to participate in. Well, like I said, I thank you all for giving me this opportunity to be on the show today to get some of my thoughts out. Thank you, Josh, for providing me this opportunity. I hope that I was able to bring some pertinent information and timely information that we could utilize going forward.
55:19 Absolutely. New Orleans is such a hotbed of, you know, this space, senior African-American, family, extended history, et cetera. So you're always welcome. Well, in fact, I'll give you a little tidbit. The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival will be in about three weeks. And I have a choir. That will be singing at the Jazz Fest at the Gospel Tent on the first Friday of the first week of the festival. So the choir is over 60 individuals. Their age in range from 90 all the way down to 60, 65. And as they say, they are a force to be reckoned with.
56:12 I'm very proud of him. This is our fourth year participating at the fest in the gospel tent. And so I'm kind of looking forward to it. And hopefully we'll get some videos that we can shoot to Josh and he can share with you guys. And that's how you guys would earn points as an agency, right? Going up against somebody else. I would challenge my Pennsylvania folks to see what kind of senior choir or musical group they could put together for one of our festivals, et cetera. And those types of interactive activities, it's kind of a different kind of Olympics for the rest of us, but it keeps us sharp.
56:57 It keeps us moving, keeps us learning, keeps us social. keeps us interacting and maybe advances some of our knowledge. Real pleasure having you on today. What a, what an honor. Wonderful. So that's a wrap everybody. Have a wonderful week. Remember to always be thinking, how can I advance the dream? If you see something, say something, be empathetic, be compassionate, be a force for health. And you have a wonderful week. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye.
Transcript is auto-generated from the broadcast captions and lightly cleaned; timestamps jump to the moment on YouTube.
Advance the Dream · Episode Recap ·