Experience Matters
Vicki Ellner is the Director of Community Outreach at Family Care Certified Services and is the chairperson of Senior Umbrella Network of Brooklyn, a networking advocacy group. She presents a very sympathetic picture of the complex issues of ageism. When asked what specific challenges she felt people face as they get older she replied “How much time do you have?”
Ellner tells a poignant story of her father who retired in his seventies and felt at the end of his life that he was no longer valuable: “Here was a man who built a family, was loved by many people, had a business that flourished under his direction and supervision, and (he) sat there...and said ‘I just don’t have any value anymore.’ and to me, before I knew that ‘ageism’ was out there, that was something that seemed so upsetting, that people feel like that because of their age.” Ellner states, "We are a product of our experience as we age and we are just as valuable."
Hear about what the Brooklyn borough is doing to raise awareness of ageism issues.
Catch how she hopes to have some kind of effect on this issue as a community effort, "because," continues Vicki, "you know what, we ARE going to be that person some time in the future."
