Many Ulster County residents are transplants from busier places, lured by a romantic vision of Life in the Country. We came seeking peace and quiet and less pollution and a slower pace, in bucolic communities where one worries more about deer eating one’s shrubbery than about muggers or burglars or street gangs. Gardiner, with its spectacular mountain views and winding rural roads, has long been such a draw for urban exiles.
But as we grow older, the concept of “livable communities” gradually takes on new shades of meaning. Some of the most attractive assets of a place like Gardiner, where most residents have to drive in order to go about their daily tasks, become hindrances to the less mobile. For the elderly in particular, “aging in place” is a challenge when you don’t have so much as a corner store within walking distance.
A group of Gardiner citizens has recognized this problem and is organizing to do something about it. The Gardiner Livable Communities Committee (GLCC) was born out of a recent initiative by the Ulster County Office for the Aging and Family of Woodstock, funded by a $35,000 grant from the New York State Office for the Aging, to study and publicize the resources available in this county to help seniors to go on living at home as long as possible. The coalition brought in some MSW graduate students from Adelphi University to do the research and to set up pilot projects in two rural communities: Olive and Gardiner.
Once the grant funding ran out and the student interns moved on, Sharon Murray-Cohen, executive director of Jewish Family Services of Ulster County, picked up the ball and went on working with local volunteers to develop resource guides for the two communities. Early in 2011, the Gardiner-based Committee sent out a “needs assessment” survey to over 300 Town residents to identify the biggest gaps in services and identify seniors’ priorities. Besides lowering the property taxes that force so many retired folks to give up their long-paid-for homes, the issue most often cited in the survey responses was, not surprisingly, the lack of public transportation. But also mentioned were needs for many other services that the elderly have increasing difficulty doing for themselves, such as home repairs and weatherization.
In response, the GLCC folks put together a booklet called Empowering Seniors: Senior Resources for the Town of Gardiner, NY. The first edition of that resource guide is currently going through its final revisions, and the Committee has put out a call for volunteers for a “folding party” on Thursday, Jan. 5 to assemble the printed pamphlets. The guide will then be distributed throughout the community via the New Paltz/Gardiner Senior Citizens, the local American Association of Retired Persons chapter, the Gardiner Library, Town Hall, local churches and the St. Charles Food Bank.
Currently active members of GLCC include Yvonne Allenson, Marilyn Rogers, Jane Barile, Leitha Ortiz-Lesh, George Wheeler and soon-to-retire town supervisor Joe Katz, who says that he intends to stay involved with the Committee after he steps down from his municipal post. Katz notes that “Public transportation is a real problem in Gardiner,” and hopes that GLCC will be able to mount a public awareness campaign to encourage community volunteers to keep tabs on their more homebound neighbors and offer them rides for such necessities as doctor appointments and grocery shopping. Ulster County’s Retired Senior Volunteer Program is available to coordinate this type of volunteerism on a more formal level, but Katz also wants to see a return to a more traditional ethic of neighbors looking out for one another in Gardiner.
The new resource guide has a section listing merchants offering senior citizen discounts, but other than that, it does not list local artisans who might be available to provide services that the elderly are likely to need. There are liability issues involved, says Ortiz-Lesh, who is an attorney. “We need to investigate other types of services that we can legally promote as a volunteer organization,” she notes. But the need for some vector to put elderly residents in touch with reputable service providers is compelling, Committee members agree. “That handyman issue is huge,” says Barile.
Gardiner residents who wish to participate in the Jan. 5 folding party or otherwise get involved in GLCC are invited to contact the group through Joe Katz at Town Hall, 255-9675. According to Katz, a dedicated extension number for the Committee will be made available at Town Hall in the near future. ++
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