Raise Your Voice. Change Aging. Give Together.

Today, YOU can be the change agent to make living longer, living better.  Here's what you need to know: 

  • Giving began at midnight and goes until 11:59pm!
  • GOLDEN TICKETS of $1,000 will be given to a random donor's charity every hour -- so any gift at any time can make a big impact! 
  • Keep an eye on the Leaderboards -- prizes of $15,000, $10,000 and $5,000 will be awarded to the top three nonprofits which received the most dollars in 24 hours.  Help us make that Leaderboard! 
  • PASS IT ON!  Encourage your friends, family, neighbors and colleagues to give to Ecumen!  E-mail, call, Tweet, or send a Facebook message -- just let them know!  

Make your voice heard for changing aging TODAY! 

http://givemn.razoo.com/story/Ecumen or www.ecumengiving.org


Raise your hand. Change Aging. Give Together.

People are already thinking about changing aging. Just last week, Ecumen’s Awakenings project was featured on Kare 11’s Land of 10,000 Stories. Take five minutes to watch this incredible video – see the faces and hear the stories of Awakenings.

YOU can make change happen! Ecumen is participating in Give to the Max Day for the first time ever, encouraging our partners to stand with us for innovation in senior care.

Here is just one story among the many ways Ecumen is changing aging: 

This summer, on a Twin Cities golf course, Carri*, an Ecumen supporter, was telling her partner about Awakenings, Ecumen’s revolutionary new approach to Alzheimer’s care. As she described the incredible experience of residents shaking off the effects of archaic treatment and "awakening" to life once more, her friend’s eyes filled with tears. He cried as he described how his own mother had suffered from Alzheimer’s and experienced the very symptoms Awakenings works to eradicate. When she passed away, he had tremendous grief. He was astounded that a program like Awakenings now existed – and wished that his mother could have experienced it.

Change can’t happen fast enough. More people need to know about projects like Awakenings – projects that are literally changing aging and changing lives. When you participate in Give to the Max, you’re raising your hand for Ecumen and for change.

Raise your hand for changing aging on November 16! Visit www.ecumengiving.org for more information. 
*Name changed at the request of the donor


Honor - Veterans Day 2012

Thank you to America's veterans! Following are just a few of the stories from Ecumen customers who have served our country.  We invite you to share your remembrances and tributes in the comments section below.

Mike Colallilo

Today in Duluth, one of the few living Medal of Honor recipients will be honored at Ecumen's Bayshore community. Only about 450 U.S. soldiers, sailors and pilots received the nation's highest combat award during the war. Mike Colallilo, pictured above with President Truman, received his based on his bravery and leadership on April 7, 1945. Here is an excerpt from a Minnesota Public Radio Story. You can read the full story here – it’s amazing.

"Lying on the ground, bullets and shells flying everywhere, Colalillo decided something had to be done. Even though he was a private, not in command, Colalillo rose up and yelled to the other soldiers to follow him.

"I jumped on the tank...and told them...'I'm going to use your machine gun.'"

The soldiers fell in behind some tanks and moved forward, firing as they went. Shell fragments hit Colalillo's submachine gun, making the weapon useless, and leaving him even more vulnerable.
"I jumped on the tank, and just hollered in the tank and told them, 'I lost my gun and I'm going to use your machine gun on the top,'" Colalillo recalls. "And that's when I started shooting all these positions where the Germans were."

Doris Brand

Doris Brand lives at Ecumen Point Pleasant Heights in Chisago City.  Among her neighbors at Ecumen Point Pleasant Heights are 30 other WW II vets.  She served in the Navy during WW II in the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service). She played a substantial role in developing America’s air supremacy.

She attended Hunter College in New York City and then headed to boot camp.  Afterwards she was one of just 1,000 women nationally who became Link Trainer instructors. These were instructors who ran flight simulators to train pilots. After her training in Atlanta, where she learned how to fly planes, transmit morse code, and other skills, she trained pilots at the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi, Texas.

In a recent interview, she shared how some male pilots tried barrel rolls and loops in the simulator  to see if they could make her sick. They never succeeded. But she did succeed and, because of it, she helped our country succeed. 

Honor Flights

A number of Ecumen customers this year have taken Honor Flights to visit the World War II memorial in Washington D.C. Recently returning from one of those flights was Jim Reasoner (pictured at left) from Ecumen's Pathstone Living Community and Bill Spehar, Vince Flesness and Bob Huston, who recently passed away, took flight to D.C. from Ecumen Lakeshore.

Among the remembrances, Jim shared the following:  He was 19 years old, and married with two young daughters when he was drafted. He was involved in combat in the invasion of the Philippines. In addition to participating in heavy combat, he suffered from 26 attacks of malaria. After a 30-day hospital stay on the Island of Leyte, he rejoined his company in Yokohama, Japan, soon after it had been bombed.  He worked out of Tokyo. He recalls at the end of the War taking the USS U.S. Grant back across the Pacific to the U.S. with 5,000 other soldiers. Crossing below the Golden Gate Bridge, he and his fellow troops were welcomed by thousands of people and bands, and banners flying everywhere.

Another neat story added today by colleague Lori Olson; you can read the full stor in the comments below.

Thank you again to all veterans!  We invite you to share your thanks, remembrances and tributes below in the comments section.


Ecumen Awakenings in the News

Ecumen North Branch Awakenings  Gary Babcock hadn't heard his father speak in two years, and watched as Melvin Babcock sat motionless, most often slumped in sleep, in his wheelchair. Melvin Babcock was living with Alzheimer's, and as his behavior became more and more agitated, caregivers increased his antipsychotic medications in effort to "restrain" him. That was before Melvin became part of Ecumen's Awakenings program at Ecumen North Branch.

  "When I heard him tell my mom, 'That was our son Gary,' as I walked away, I couldn't believe it," said Gary. "And now he's wheeling around the place, stopping at neighbors' doors to say hello."

  You can view a poignant news feature about our Awakenings initiative that recently aired on KARE 11 TV, by clicking here. What the feature video won't tell you is that Melvin is now on his third pair of biking gloves. 

  Ecumen's Awakenings initiative is underway in all of our 15 care centers in Minnesota. Find our locations at ecumen.org. You can join us in changing aging by donating to Ecumen Giving on Minnesota Give to the Max day, November 16. 


Changing Aging: Give Together!

Ecumen is participating in Give to the Max Day!  www.youtube.com/watch

On November 16, tens of thousands of Minnesotans will join together to give to the causes they believe in. This year, we are calling on Ecumen’s friends and supporters to join us to GIVE TOGETHER TO CHANGE AGING. See a quick video by clicking HERE.

Watch for more information on this blog and in your e-mail – let’s change aging together!


Urge Your Senators Not to Repeal the CLASS ACT - CALL 855-218-2109

Urge Your Senators Not to Repeal the CLASS ACT - CALL 855-218-2109

We must urge Congress not to repeal the CLASS Act. It is the only framework on the books to help transform how our country finances long-term services and supports. Today Medicaid pays for half of long-term care services, which is not sustainable. Before the week's end, we hope you will call 855-218-2109 and follow the prompts to be connected to one of your senators. You can call back to be patched through to your other Senator.


The Message

Once you are patched through, tell the senator's office that you hope they will urge the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to appoint the CLASS Independence Advisory Council that is mandated in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act .

Thanks for making these calls and your work in changing aging . . .


Please Contact the Obama Administration This Week: Keep Working on the CLASS Act

Please join us and others this week across the country incontinuing our advocacy around the creation of a national insurance program to help people pay for long-term services and supports.

The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act is at a critical time. Last week, the administration issued a letter saying that it did not "see a path forward" for implementing the CLASS Act.

Please call: 855-218-2109 (you will be patched to either the White House or Dept. of Health and Human Services where you can leave a message).

Urge the Administration to continue working on CLASS.

The problem of financial protection for Americans is not going away. America has to create a viable solution for people to pay for long-term services and supports they need. Giving up on a solution now after all the work that's been done to this point would be foolish.

Without a solution, Medicaid continues as America's default insurance, which isn't sustainable. . . . America can and must do better!

Thank you for your advocacy in Changing Aging!

P.S. This editorial today from the Minneapolis Star Tribune illustrates why work on CLASS must continue. Also, here is the recent non-partisan Citizens League's Journal, which includes an article from Ecumen and another from Minnesota's Commissioner of Human Services Lucinda Jesson. This issue looks at ways to innovate in long-term care financing. Also, this NY Times article does a good job summing up the issue.


Ecumen Customers in Alexandria Reunite and Rekindle Friendship as They Turn 100

Ecumen customers in Alexandria, MN Iola Stark (L) and Christel Guiles (R)

Iola Stark and Christel Guiles first met in 1929 when attending college in Morris Minnesota Agricultural School, a branch of the University of Minnesota.  (Today it's the University of Minnesota-Morris).  After graduation, life took off and they lost touch.  Almost eight decades later they met again at Ecumen's Bethany Community in Alexandria, MN.  They have had a lot to catch up on and they have a lot to celebrate. . .

Born five days apart, they each celebrate their 100th birthdays in December.  Iola's 100th birthday is December 13th and Christel's the 18th.  Congratulations to both of them!  We're looking forward to having them join Ecumen's Centenarian Club.


Funny Video - Trying to Get that Dang Thing to Work

Bruce and Esther Huffman, who live in Oregon, were playing with their new laptop and trying to figure out how to use its camera function. They ended up inadvertently making a video that's been watched more than 8 million times since a granddaughter put it on YouTube recently.

He sings, burps and makes faces — and gets a little frisky. She keeps trying to find out how the dang thing works.

Technology . . . . we've all been there.


Jim Klobuchar: Finding a Lost Virtue on a Ball Field

In ancient times, let’s say as late as the 1950s, the sight of a football stadium in autumn stirred the glands of millions of people who were still able to confess a measureable level of sanity.

The players they watched in the big college games could actually be observed in classrooms during the week. In the professional leagues most of players spent the winter and spring working in steel mills to pay their bills, or they stayed home changing diapers.

This is 2011. It’s not necessary to document the corporate status that pro football has achieved. The game and its promoters have wrapped it in gold and spawned millions of disciples who play fantasy football with the fervor of actual head coaches and with most of their inside knowledge. America goes bonkers on Monday night. Add Sunday night. Add six hours Sunday afternoon. Click on the TV on game day and you get splashed with flying confetti and ten American flags; after which you are overwhelmed by a country western guitar plucker with a cast of thousands inviting you to get ready for some football in surround sound and HD. By then, how can you not be ready? And the country laps it up. Why? Often it IS a good show. The perfect game for television.

But partly because of the omnipresence of pro football, college football has risen with the tide in television exposure and now has created a monster. To compete in the big leagues of the major schools, where the big money is in television and bowl games, they have enlisted the best there is from the high schools. In thousands of homes across the country college scouts become part of the core family, sometimes outranking grandpa. Agents are on the horn the day they can do it legally. Television money into the millions of dollars is now available to the major universities that win football games, and to their lesser competitors who scoop up the leftovers in a classic demonstration of trickle down economics. Coaches who win in the big leagues of college football pull down millions of dollars. To keep pace with each other they send out droves of scouts, who sometimes have to battle the droves of agents who hover on the fringes. They also have to compete with college boosters, the most frenzied of whom eventually embarrass the school with illegal gifts to the players, as we have seen played out in the scandals this year.

So a friend who knows all about this invited me to watch a practice of his own school, one of the private colleeges in St. Paul. He introduced me to the coach, who said his players might be interested in a few thoughts from somebody who wrote pro football for years as part of his exertions as a daily columnist.

It was a lovely day on campus, the fall coming in, sunlight engulfing the field, making the water cooler a popular destination. Something like 55 or 60 young men were on the field, running plays, scrimmaging, slapping each others’ behinds when the play worked, or the defense doing it when the linemen made a stop. It was the football atmospheric I remembered from my high school years. They were football players for sure, getting ready for the games on Friday nights or Saturday. The coaches moved in their midst, upbeat, teaching, clapping their hands, changing a lineman’s stance, laughing at the kid’s rebuttal. I saw very few out there who were going to get acquainted with an NFL scout. What I saw were college students playing football and playing it well enough to compete.

When the coach ended practice he introduced the visitor. He said I had known the pros up close, and that they might be interested in some of my thoughts.

I told them I could have spent all day watching. It restored the football I knew, the random horsing around, but also the hitting, the satisfaction of making a good tackle, faking out the linebacker, but doing it with the kids who were my classmates. It was the same mix of laughs, a little goofing around, and the coaches putting a damper on that in a hurry. What else was it? It was still something close to family; it was practice, and then grabbing the books from your locker and bicycling home.

I told them what playing the game had meant to me. I talked about the idea of it, Team, the hours they’d shared reaching for a goal, they would not forget: the nuttiness of some of the days and the characters on the team—their faces and quirks, some of the tears, the coach who taught and supported them. It was their special community.

But it was something beyond that. They would discover later in life that whatever their success and rebuffs, the relationships in their lives would be the most important part of their lives, and one those relationships that would really not end grew right here on the field.

Does the game matter? I remembered a football player named Walter Payton, a Hall of Fame running back of the Chicago Bears. Everybody who played football, teammate or opponent, loved Walter Paton. He played a football of joy. Once after being tackled, he was caught untying the shoe laces of the referee, Bernie Kukar, who was busy pulling bodies off the pileup.

When Walter Payton he died of cancer not long after his career ended, one of the networks did a program bringing together some of the men he played with and against. It was a remarkable testimony. These were aggressive people who made a living beating on each other for big money, scheming against each other in a concussive game. But in remembering Walter Payton, all of these people came together in a solidarity of grief and gratitude for his life. He was the rare football player who could reach a willful man like Mike Ditka and touch him with humility; an undemonstrative man like Bud Grant and touch him with tenderness; an uncompromising competitor like Mike Singletary and touch him with peace.

Sometime, it’s still a kid’s game, which we tend to forget.

About Jim Klobuchar:

In 45 years of daily journalism, Jim Klobuchar’s coverage ranged from presidential campaigns to a trash collector’s ball. He has written from the floor of a tent in the middle of Alaska, from helicopters, from the Alps and from the edge of a sand trap. He was invited to lunch by royalty and to a fist fight by the late Minnesota Viking football coach, Norm Van Brocklin. He wrote a popular column for the Minneapolis Star Tribune for 30 years and has authored 23 books. Retiring as a columnist in 1996, he contributes to Ecumen’s “Changing Aging” blog, MinnPost.com and the Christian Science Monitor. He also leads trips around the world and an annual bike trip across Northern Minnesota. He’s climbed the Matterhorn in the Alps 8 times and has ridden his bike around Lake Superior. He’s also the proud father of two daughters, including Minnesota's senior U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar.