Age-Friendly Chelsea

Contacts: Wilma Ware (sebecware@gmail.com) &     Andrea Sargent (andreadawn50@yahoo.com)

Joined the AARP Network of Age-Friendly States and Communities: 2022-03-22

Structure: All-volunteer committee with close municipal ties

Highlights of 2023: 

• • • The Reading Connection, an intergenerational reading program.  Residents sign up and read to students in the library at our elementary school.

    • Monthly Informational Luncheon.  Residents are provided a free, home cooked meal while listening to a guest speaker.

    • Building a strong volunteer base. 

Age Friendly Chelsea's Initiatives and Accomplishments:

Civic Participation and Employment

• Quarterly Chat with the Manager - Refreshments provided. Chance for residents to meet with the Town Manager in an informal setting to discuss any concerns

• Age-Friendly coordinated with American Legion Post #6 in Hallowell to provide residents a way to properly dispose of damaged flags. During business hours, damaged flags can be dropped off at the Chelsea Town Office.

Communication and Information

• Age-Friendly Informational Luncheon - 3rd Thursday of the Month, 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Free meal and guest speaker. Chelsea Grange #215 donates the space for the luncheon. Also quarterly, we provide a packet of information/resources on dementia and cover a chapter of Pathways to Well-Being with Dementia.

• Publishes a town-wide newsletter

Community Supports and Health Services

• Chelsea Summer Concert Series. Free to the public. We collaborate with the Chelsea Booster Club, which provides the food at the concerts, all proceeds from food sales help fund extracurricular activities for students. We also have a 50/50 raffle, half the proceeds are donated to the Chelsea Food Bank.

• Coordinating the CSFP with Spectrum Generations and the Town of Chelsea.

• Coordinated with the town and opened a Warming/Cooling Center located at our Town Office.

• 12 Months of Giving: We assessed the needs of our community and coordinated with the Town of Chelsea to do monthly drives to collect items needed. Items are dropped off at the Chelsea Town Office and Age-Friendly Chelsea volunteers distribute the items.

Housing

• Sand for Seniors - Age-Friendly volunteers deliver one 5-gallon bucket of sand to residents 60+ or who are disabled, as needed, for use on walkways and steps.

• Resident Sand Saturday - Age-Friendly volunteers open the town sand shed on scheduled Saturdays for residents to get up to two 5- gallon buckets of sand for personal use.

• Currently working with the town and a local church to offer help with shoveling, cleaning gutters, changing batteries in smoke detectors, etc.

Outdoor Spaces and Public Buildings

• Butternut Park. Through grants and donations, and collaborating with the Chelsea Historical Society, the Chelsea Conservation Committee, and Girl Scout Troop #1075, we have installed signage on the history of the Chelsea Waterfront, provided picnic tables, reintroduced Butternut trees, installed a trailhead kiosk, installed tree/plant identification markers, worked on trails, made a "river stage" from natural resources found in the park, and had a cleanup day.

• Involved in 2 Community Gardens. One at the Town Office, and the other at the Chelsea Elementary School. In addition to the Community Gardens, we created an intergenerational Garden Buddies Program where one generation teaches another generations about planting/growing/harvesting. 

Respect and Social Inclusion

• The Reading Connection - Monthly intergenerational reading program. Volunteer readers from the community read to students in the Chelsea Elementary School Library.

• Reading to Connect – Age-Friendly partnered with Togus VA to bring volunteer visitors to the dementia ward to read to or play games/do puzzles with dementia patients.

• Making Butternut Park more dementia inclusive.

Social Participation

• Age-Friendly Group Walk - Meets Monday, Wednesday & Friday at Togus VA, Parking Lot #1, 5:00 p.m.

• Annual Tree Lighting and Spaghetti Dinner - Age-Friendly coordinates this annual event for residents the Saturday after Thanksgiving in conjunction with the Chelsea PTA Craft Fair. We also have a dessert auction fundraiser during the dinner.

Transportation (including promotion of active transportation

• Multi-town initiative to explore transportation issues and develop a regional plan to make it easier for residents to access needed transportation.