91-Year-Old Gertie Crosses Skydiving Off Her Bucket List
The 2007 movie “The Bucket List” has inspired millions - both young and old - to tackle their list of fun and exciting “things to do” and bring more joy to their lives. Ecumen Parmly LifePointes resident Gertrude “Gertie” Nelson checked skydiving off her list after her 91st birthday. WCCO’s Jason Derusha was on-hand to capture the story of how Gertie is changing aging in this WCCO video.
Ecumen Honors National Alzheimer's Day
Pictured: Hazel Eng, 89, who lives at the Ecumen nursing home in North Branch, Minn., sharing a laugh with her daughter, Jane Lynch.
It's National Alzheimer's Day today. In the United States, an estimated 5.4 million people are living with Alzheimer’s disease, and unless something changes, as many as 16 million Americans will have Alzheimer’s in 2050. Alzheimer's is one of the most serious challenges faciing our aging population -- and caregivers. In 2010, 14.9 million family members and friends provided 17 billion hours of unpaid care to those with Alzheimer's and other dementias -- care valued at $202.6 billion!
Ecumen is proud to join the fight against Alzheimer's in many powerful ways. Read about "Awakenings", our nationally recognized initiative to improve the lives of our care center residents who live with memory loss. Through Awakenings, we are reducing or eliminating the use of anti-psychotic drugs widely prescribed to "calm" the sometimes challenging behaviors of residents with dementia. We are literally Awakening our residents from the effects of their medications. More information about Awakenings can be found on our website here. Also, this month, our senior living communities across the state are joining the Walk to End Alzheimer's. Hundreds of Ecumen employees and friends are raising thousands of dollars to support research and education through the Alzheimer's Association.
We're in this together. We're proud to be leaders in Changing Aging.
Kudos to Minnesota's Outstanding Senior Citizens!
Out of a pool of nominees from each county in the state, two Minnesota's Outstanding Senior Citizen winners are chosen for their outstanding commitment to community service since reaching the age of 65. This event is sponsored by the Minnesota State Fair, the Minnesota State Fair Foundation, and the Federation of County Fairs. Our sincere congratulations to Joan and Ronald for their valuable contributions to their communities. Read more about it HERE at the Grand Rapids Herald Tribune.
Skydiving with your Grandpa?
The Roers' three-generation skydiving group included (left to right) George Roers, son; Marvin Roers; Anna Roers, granddaughter; and Aaron Roers, grandson.
Each jumped from the plane at 13,000 feet, free-falling 120 miles per hour for just under a minute before drifting another two-and-a-half minutes under open parachutes. “I thought it would be a little bit of a jolt, but it wasn’t,” admitted Marvin.
Read the full story in the Echo Press HERE.
Jim Klobuchar - Coming Back to Earth
Atlantis touched down smoothly and historically, the last of the shuttle flights. Standing in front of my television screen I applauded, joining unseen millions of others across the country.
I also experienced at that moment a wistful might-have been in my own life, a prospect almost too good to be real, a flight into space and infinity for which I was suddenly eligible.
But here was Atlantis rolling along the runway, its crew relieved and proud. It astronauts had flown superbly and accomplished one last mission. The crew was safe. Over their more than 40 years of exploration, most of the space flights had been touched with a fairy tale quality that appealed not only to our pride of country but to our sense of wonderment that we could now actually reach for horizons that were once of the province of sorcerers and science fiction.
But now, the adventure was ending to allow some serious re-examination and search. It will be renewed when the country’s rattled economy can afford it, undoubtedly with goals even more exotic than orbiting space stations and far beyond the moon. They would carry Americans perhaps to the planets and even deeper into space. But like millions of others welcoming the safe arrival of Atlantis, I remembered the spaceship Discovery, disintegrating less than an hour from home, and years earlier the explosion of the Challenger. They reminded all of us once more that the underside of adventure and exploration is risk, and neither the finest scientific minds on earth nor trillions of dollars in technology and research can guarantee success when we lift ourselves into an hypnotic but still alien world, on machines that are marvelous but imperfect.
And then I remembered a day late in 1985, and a notification I received from NASA, the country’s space agency. NASA had embarked on a program to add selected civilians to the professional shuttle crew. It was a candid effort to bring the story of space flight closer to the public by opening it to people representing a variety of civilian disciplines—like teachers, and journalists.
NASA had already selected a teacher, Crista McAuliffe, to inaugurate the program. Sometime while her flight was in preparation, NASA invited journalists in a wide range of media—newspapers, television, radio, magazine and more. In applying, I had never honestly considered the risk. The prospect was too enticing for that. You would be going not only as a passenger but as a performing member of the crew, broadcasting the experience, describing the sensation of space flight, weightlessness, interviewing the astronauts, and conveying the pure spectacle of space.
NASA received 1,700 applications.We wrote papers describing our conception of the role and what we considered our qualifications. I was a newspaper columnist and had been a host of television and radio talk shows, flew light planes for 10 years and parachuted recreationally a few times. NASA was looking for prior experience in stressful situations and so I added my years in mountain climbing. We also were asked to write a visualization of our role on the mission, what we thought would be of highest value to the public in our reportage. NASA conducted a series of eliminations to narrow the field of prospects, culminating in regional conferences in which the applicants were grilled by an interrogation panel made up of men and women drawn from a variety of academic and technical fields. The final eliminations were to be conducted in Houston. We were down to 34 applicants. Walter Cronkite, the great broadcaster so synonymous with space flight, was one of them, and the man who would have been my favorite hands-down. Some time before Houston, George (Pinky) Nelson an astronaut who had flown in space three times, visited the Minneapolis Star Tribune, for which I wrote, and gave me a glimpse from space. The one prominent earthly feature you could see, he said, was the 4,000 mile African Rift, spreading from Syria to South Africa—where I had hiked a few years before. He was encouraging. I was starting to think about Houston.
A few months later I walked into the newspaper’s photo lab where there was a television screen. The Challenger with Crista McAuliffe aboard had just launched. It spiraled upward, ignoring gravity, reaching into space. Beautiful , I said to a colleague. But moments later a thin column of smoke snaked through the sky from the top of the television set. The spaceship was breaking up. We stood and watched, unable to speak.
I wrote for the next day’s paper. For years, I said, we had convinced ourselves that telemetry and mission controls had introduced us to so many marvels ofthe human mind and spirit that somehow they were all going to have happy endings for smiling and modest heroes.
“The thought of risk and catastrophe rarely intruded on the show. It may explain why the country’s grief is so profound when it does. So far has the spaceflight technology progressed. The launch, the rocketry—so far that it was now possible to put ordinary people into the heavens and the unknown…”
I never did receive a formal notice from NASA that there would be no journalist in space. The reason was too obvious.
The DL Tribune Shares the Empowering Stories of Two Detroit Lakes Men Living with Memory Loss
The DL Tribune shared the stories of two Detroit Lakes area men living with memory loss. George Jernberg's transformation since becoming part of our Awaking Initiative at Ecumen's Emmanuel Community has been "like he's truly awoken from a sleep," according to his daughter. You can read the full article on-line. And a volunteer at Emmanuel Community was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's but maintains a positive attitude and stays active through volunteering and technology. Read Steve's story on-line. Visit Ecumen's website for more information about the Awakenings Initiative.
Great Employees Make Great Places to Work
Great people make Ecumen a great place to work! Congratulations to the nearly 4,000 Ecumen employees who are changing aging every day. For the seventh straight year, Ecumen has been named by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal as one of Minnesota's “Best Places to Work.”
Ecumen was recognized in the "Large Company" category and is the second-most tenured award recipient with one thousand or more full-time Minnesota employees. Ecumen ranked seventh on the list of large companies.
More than 220 companies vied for the award, with only 55 organizations being honored. The awards are compiled through anonymous employee online surveys on areas of work environment, innovation and new ideas, people practices, personal development, people in the organization and day-to-day work.
Senior Citizen - Should That Phrase Be Retired?
We have boomers, Gen Xers, Millenials . . . and for years America has used the phrase "senior citizens?" It's a phrase that just seems dated. What do you think? What other ideas do you have? You can read more about this here. Share your thoughts on this blog or here at the Star Tribune.
Star Tribune Talks with Ecumen About its Transformation Work
The Minneapolis Star Tribune had an interesting Q&A Sunday with Steve Ordahl, who oversees Ecumen's senior housing development and fund development work, on our transformation over the last 8 years. You can read the full Q&A here.
5 Tips for Using Facebook from a Senior Housing Community Builder at Ecumen
The very best senior housing communities build "community" outside of their bricks and mortar. Julie O'Neil, who works at Ecumen Scenic Shores in Two Harbors, MN, shares here how she uses Facebook to connect people inside and outside of Ecumen Scenic Shores.