FEARRINGTON CARES HIRES
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

In recent FHA newsletters we’ve talked about reaching the decision to hire a part-time (20 hours/week) Executive Director; that we were most fortunate to receive a 3-year outside commitment to fund the position and that we launched the search process in January 2010. We received applications from many excellent candidates, interviewed seven and are pleased to announce that our selection, Anne M. Kissel, Ph.D., started work April 12. Anne was the unanimous choice of the search committee. She brings superb skills and experience to the position, and we are certain that she will make us a stronger organization, more focused and responsive to community issues and needs. In her own words:
” I am looking forward to becoming the newest member of the Fearrington Cares team with Joyce and Pat and to meeting the volunteers and residents who have made the program such a valuable part of your community. I’d like to tell you a little about myself. Growing up as an ‘Army brat’ led me to attend a lot of schools in many states and countries, including college in Kentucky and graduate school at the University of Florida, where I studied counseling with a specialization in Gerontology. I have worked with several programs that served elders and disabled persons but have spent most of my career in hospice programs. Since moving to the Triangle from the Atlanta area, I have been working with the Carolinas Center for Hospice and End of Life Care, the state association for hospices in North and South Carolina. My husband, Frank, and I moved to Chatham County nearly five years ago from the Atlanta area. We enjoy the rich variety of activities here (and no nasty Atlanta traffic!) and are still exploring all the area has to offer.
April 18th began National Volunteer Week; this year the theme was “Celebrating People in Action”. I can see already that Fearrington Cares volunteers are very much in this tradition of active, creative service. I look forward to helping you to continue this, as the program grows towards meeting the needs of the community in the future.”
Anne will coordinate the efforts of our volunteers and committees, allowing the Board to focus on assuring adequate financial resources to sustain our mission, explore the need for additional programs and services, deal with policy issues and prepare for a new strategic planning process in 2011. She will relieve Joyce Baird, Pat Skiver and the Board of many administrative functions, so that our nurse can concentrate on medical issues and our volunteers on providing services. Most importantly, she will provide continuity so that normal board and volunteer turnover does not lead to months of lost time while replacements learn “what it’s all about.”
Anne is busy meeting Board members, committees and major volunteer groups (receptionists, drivers, handypersons) in April, and we are setting up additional meetings in May for other “stakeholder” groups. To reach Anne, call Fearrington Cares at 542-6877 during regular office hours, M – F, 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
– Kay Hunt, Fearrington Cares President

CONTINUING CARE RETIREMENT
COMMUNITIES SERIES

What plans do you have if you find yourself unable to continue living in your own home? Have you evaluated any Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs)? Do you know the differences between the CCRCs offering life care and fee-for-service facilities? What levels of health care are provided? When and how would you apply? What questions would you ask?
Get answers at Fearrington Cares’ two-part CCRC Series on May 3 and May 10 at 1:30 p.m. in the Gathering Place.
May 3: Attorney Gregory Herman-Giddens will explain contracts and other legal and financial matters related to CCRC contracts. Who gets to make housing and care decisions for the residents? What’s in the small print?
May 10: Angel Dennison, Executive Director, Chatham County Council on Aging, will discuss the differences among the various types of CCRCs and other available senior housing options. She will provide practical advice on when to apply, when to stop saying “not yet” and the availability of an ombudsman program in NC.
Deanna Kitay, a Fearrington resident with extensive experience in dealing with CCRCs will also be on hand to help answer your questions.

SAFETY OF OUR FOOD

Come to the Gathering Place on May 20 at 2:00 p.m. to hear Phyllis Smith, RD, LDN, Extension Agent for Chatham County, Department of Family and Consumer Education, tell us what our own county is doing about food safety and what’s happening nationally. She will discuss additives and chemicals in our manufactured food, hormones and antibiotics in our meat and why they are there as well as concerns about plastics in packaging food. She will allow time to answer any questions you have.

VOLUNTEERS LIVE LONGER!!

Many volunteer organizations claim that “volunteers live longer.” While this is a snappy catchphrase, determining the effect of volunteering on life expectancy or quality of life is a difficult endeavor because people who volunteer may differ in many important ways from those who do not volunteer. Nevertheless, recent studies have suggested that volunteering is associated with enhanced quality of life and increased life expectancy.
At the 2009 Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Geriatrics Society, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco presented evidence that retirees older than 65 who volunteered were less than half as likely to die during the study period as those who did not volunteer. The 6,360 subjects for the UCSF study were selected from participants in the 2002 nationwide Health and Retirement Study, which asked whether participants had done any volunteer work for charity organizations within the previous year. There were 1,766 in the volunteer group and 4,594 in the non-volunteer group. Between 2002 and 2006, 12% of the volunteers and 26% of the non-volunteers died. Even after adjusting the data for differences between the groups, such as socioeconomic status or chronic health conditions, the UCSF researchers still found that volunteering is strongly associated with lower mortality.
The UCSF study speculated that volunteering may help seniors remain more engaged in life and stay more physically, mentally and socially active. This hypothesis is supported by a 2004 University of Wisconsin study, which found that seniors who volunteer had increased levels of purpose in life (the tendency to derive meaning from life’s experiences and to be focused and intentional).
The UW study focused on the psychological well-being of seniors with role-identity absences (i.e., the person lacks a partner, employment and/or a parental role). The subjects were 373 people, aged 65-74. The study found that seniors with a greater number of major role-identity absences reported less purpose in life. However, it found that being a volunteer can protect older adults with a greater number of major role-identity absences from decreased levels of purpose in life. The researchers infer that “volunteering might provide older adults, who are likely lacking other major sources of role-identity, an opportunity for developing more meaning and experiencing more purpose in their lives.”
Finally, a 2009 Rush University Medical Center study found lower mortality in seniors having a greater purpose in life. Investigators from the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center studied a subset of participants in two ongoing research studies, the Rush Memory and Aging Project and the Minority Aging Research Study. The subjects were 1,238 seniors living in continuing care retirement communities and senior subsidized housing facilities. Each subject completed a purpose in life questionnaire at the beginning of the study and again for up to five years of follow-up. During the 5-year follow-up period, 151 subjects (12.2%) died. After adjusting for age, sex, education and race, a person with a high purpose in life score was about half as likely to die over the follow-up period compared to a person with low purpose in life. The association of purpose in life with mortality persisted even after adjustments for other demographic, medical, psychological and socioeconomic factors.
Taken together, these studies suggest that volunteering increases a senior’s sense of purpose in life, which may lead to an increased lifespan. While these studies do not consider all factors associated with well-being and mortality and do not consider the forms or levels of volunteering that might produce a positive effect, there is growing evidence that volunteering is beneficial to the volunteer as well as to the recipients of his/her service.