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Age-Friendly Pioneer Series
Back in the early months of 2016, Envision Berwick, a committee of volunteers appointed by the Select Board to implement the town’s Comprehensive Plan, started planning the launch of a new age-friendly subcommittee.
This group would specifically address the needs of older residents. That June, under the leadership of James Bellissimo, “Age-Friendly Berwick” held an organizational meeting and invited the head of the AARP Maine Age-Friendly Community Project, Peter Morelli, to attend and provide a framework for their mission.
The Age-Friendly ideology took hold, and with it, the commitment to make Berwick a better place to live for residents of all ages. Made up of volunteers Pat Boisvert, Laurice Jackson, Ruth Bleau, and the Town Planner and Chair James Bellissimo, this new committee would spend the next six months defining what an age-friendly town looks like. They would also work to create and distribute a survey, funded by a grant from AARP, to identify what Berwick residents believed to be the three most important areas of concern using the model 8 Domains of Livability, as defined by the World Health Organization.
Fast forward four months from that first meeting, and in October, I arrived at the Berwick Public Library as the new Director. I knew that I had my work cut out for me with learning the ropes at the library and getting to know the community. I had no idea what the Age-Friendly movement was, or how it pertained to Berwick, but when James asked me if I would like to sit in on the meetings, I said sure! I knew it would be a good way to learn more about the town, and James really impressed me as a person with old world wisdom and a strong belief in the importance of community. He was speaking my librarian language, and besides, I thought, how hard could it be?
What I did not know was how much I was going to connect to the mission of Berwick for a Lifetime (BFAL), and how important the Age-Friendly movement in the state of Maine was going to become to me.
Soon, the results of the survey were in, a name for the new sub-committee was chosen, and BFAL met on to plan its first official program. We hosted a public forum to discuss the survey’s findings and identified the three most important issues for the committee to focus on. The event was well attended, and the three contenders were: housing, transportation, and communication.
When our local newspaper Foster’s Daily Democrat asked James how these priorities were going to be worked on, he said that he could “see a new version of the committee working on providing solutions to the challenges and needs identified in the survey.” He also said, “We learned that the library can be a big asset” and that “the town ‘has a long way to go’ when communicating about events.”
Those three quotes literally shaped the direction that BFAL would take for the next ten years. James was prescient.
Since those early days, there has been a lot of work and many positive changes, which have added to what it is today. We submitted the Age-Friendly Action Plan to AARP in September of 2019, and we felt good about the work ahead.
In 2020, the country shut down due to the pandemic, and groups were discouraged from meeting in person. Older people were especially vulnerable, and over the course of what felt to be overnight, BFAL dispersed. My job at the library became one hundred times more challenging, as staff and I worked through the pandemic, literally reinventing the public-library-service wheel.
In September of 2021, James became our new Town Manager, leaving me to hold the BFAL reins, but we were both still very focused on our own responsibilities as the pandemic raged on.
Jeremy Kasten, then-Chair of Envision Berwick, who brought his goats to Meet and Bleat and Alaina Goodnough, Assistant Director of the Berwick Public Library who loved them!
James Bellisimo gets help with the sand bucket program from people of all ages!
Community Volunteers Celebrating AARP Recognition of their 5-Year Progress Report
By 2023, I knew that it was going to take something big and really fun to grab people’s attention and shine a spotlight on BFAL, and what better way to do it than with GOATS!
With the help of Envision Berwick’s new chairperson, Jeremy Kasten, I held the first annual Meet and Bleat at the library on a beautiful spring day. It was a huge success and got the word out that BFAL was still alive and definitely kicking!
Librarians are also very good at community outreach, and I made sure to set up a table for the library and BFAL at every community event possible and talk to as many people as possible. Now, Jeremy is the Director of Berwick Communications and Media and he makes sure to promote our events town wide – those early partnerships pay off!
With the help of Patricia Oh and her team, the Age-Friendly Community Zoom meetings were a place I found mentorship, programming ideas, and got information about grants to fund bite-sized, manageable projects that would give us the biggest impact. Age-Friendly Maine are the nicest, kindest, most generous people around and this was all a labor of love. What I learned about this community within a community is that there is no right or wrong way to do Age-Friendly. It is simply a matter of getting out there, talking to people and having fun. That alone will bring you a more volunteers and a lot of exposure.
Both James and I knew from early on that it would best if a resident of the town could chair the BFAL committee. In 2024, I was able to pass the baton to Stina Brazelton, BFAL’s current coordinator. She has worked tirelessly at continuing all of our initiatives, attending meetings with the Lifelong Community, and perfecting the current system of shared leadership by committee, which is very effective.
As I sit at the BFAL monthly meetings, I am so proud of the job Stina and her team are doing, what we have accomplished and what we have become! BFAL is an active community gem that provides many great programs including informational Lunch and Learns, Gentle Yoga, a twice-weekly walking group, winter emergency packs, sand buckets, Handy Helper tools, and a brand new Aging Well Resource Center - many of these take place at the library and are a library director’s dream!
Throughout this entire process, we had the support of the Maine AARP community, the Berwick Select Board and Town Manager, and the many community members who participated in the process. There is one person, Patricia Oh, whose support and belief in us made, and continues to make, all of this possible.
Fred Rogers always said, “Look for the helpers”.
I will add that it is there that you will find Patricia Oh!
Onward and Upward!
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