Hello residents of OLWT! This will be my last blog post of the year, so I am going to talk about Christmas (even though it’s a little early)! Personally, I love this holiday. It’s filled with such joy, comradery , and family time. As the youngest of five children,  Christmas was always incredibly hectic in my home. However, from that came wonderful traditions. When we were younger, after we had eaten a big steak dinner and gone to Christmas Eve mass, we would all play hide and seek. My parents must truly love us, for thinking back they would always pretend to have a hard time to find us (even though we were in obvious hiding spots). Now that we’re older, we all gather on the couch and watch “The Father of the Bride”. I highly encourage you to watch that film if you haven’t seen it.

What I also love about Christmas is the beautiful decorations! Those living on my floor know this, I put out my Christmas wreath well before Thanksgiving (lol)! Inside, I’ve put out a little Christmas tree, a nativity scene given to me by my great aunt, and lots of lights! It adds such warmth. I am also loving the decorations around OLWT! It feels so festive and joyful. Thank you to all of the staff and residents who have worked hard to make the space look so beautiful.

With these, I hope that you have thought about your favorite Christmas and/or Holiday traditions. Comment on this if you would like! I always love to hear people’s festivities. Last thing, I will be taking a couple weeks off the weeks following Christmas and New Year. So, if I do not see you before then, have a very Happy Holiday! I wish you all joy, safety, and love. Thank you for your continued kindness towards me. How lucky I am to be a part of this community!

The month of November has gone so quickly! I can’t believe Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching. As this holiday comes, the madness of Christmas shopping, decorating, an abundance of food, various projects, and family time (that is often accompanied with drama) is not far behind. With this, cliche as it is, it is important for all of us to slow down and relay the things we are thankful for. I know for me, I have a plethora of things in my life to be thankful for, including wonderful friends, family, education, and mostly, all of you! This semester has been one of the most exciting, stressful, wonderful, fantastic times of my life because I am living in a community that has taught me so much. It is a joy to meet and come to know each of you. One way I have been celebrating and educating others on my living situation, is decorating the bulletin board in Healthcare for the month of November! Thanks to a collaboration of people, we decided to decorate the board based on the agency I am interning at: Age-Friendly Columbus and Franklin County. This is the agency who has collaborated with OLWT to make my living here possible!

The concept of Age-Friendly cities was started by the World Health Organization who assigns an affiliate to every country. In the United States, the affiliate is AARP Livable Communities. Age-Friendly cities work within a five-year cycle consisting of four phases and under 8 domains. Those are pictured below!

These are the 8 domains of livability. Under these 8 domains are 54 strategies Age-Friendly Columbus must complete in the next 3 years.

The five-year cycle Age-Friendly Columbus operates under. We are currently in Phase 3.

Age-Friendly Columbus and Franklin County has also championed a positive aging campaign to combat ageist attitudes towards older adults. One way they are doing this is through the use of buttons! The buttons have different sayings including “Old is Gold” “Aging So Cool Everybody’s Doing It!”, “Rockin’ the Gray”, “Getting Better with Age”, “Old People are Awesome”, and many more! There are buttons provided on the bulletin board. Please take one and wear it with pride! I will also be hosting an event on December 3rd at 2:00 pm where all of you are welcome to come and make your own buttons! More information to come on that.

To find out more about what Age-Friendly is, be sure to check out the bulletin board and have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!

The last few weeks have been the busiest of my life! My sister got married, my birthday took place, Porch Stories began, I attended two floor dinners, and I got to vote right here at OLWT!

First off, thank you so much for the wonderful birthday cards and wishes, I felt so special. I came home to multiple birthday cards both on Saturday and Sunday and even an awesome birthday balloon! You are all so sweet and made me feel very loved. Who better to celebrate your birthday than with 200 of your closest friends?

What was so especially excited was my sister getting married! The ceremony was incredibly beautiful and it was wonderful to celebrate with family and friends. Because I have four other siblings, their significant others, and 5 nieces and nephews, there’s already 18 people in just my intermediate family! That makes for an amazing celebration. Further, my other sister got engaged this same week and I am the maid of honor! Definitely a busy time for the Gillespie family!

Further, thank you to all of those who have attended Porch Stories thus far! It has been such a wonderful experience hearing your stories and learning more deeply about each of your lives. How special that is to me! Just as a reminder, there will be 4 more Porch Stories that take place this year! The dates include November 12th, November 19th, November 26th, and December 3rd! After December 3rd, I will be taking some time off to spend with family and friends since my semester will be over. Porch Stories will resume in January! It will be wonderful to see all of you there!

Lastly, how cool is it that I got to vote at OLWT? That is truly the dream, to wake up, get dressed, and vote in the same building you live in! I hope all of you got the chance to vote. It’s an important privilege to exercise that right. I am excited to discuss that all at the next Current Events!

A day in my life is quite different to most college students. I wake up early, go to bed early, and interact with some of the most wonderful people and neighbors, who are often older than I am! It is such a privilege to be able to interact with many of you on a daily basis. Never have I had more of an opportunity to interact with a variety of people than living here at OLWT. This blog post will describe a day in my life.

I wake up (often to the bouts of natural light that floods my room), eat breakfast consisting of eggs, a piece of toast with peanut butter and cinnamon, and a large cup of coffee. I then get ready for my day and am often out the door by 8:30 am. However, on the way, I ride the elevator and chat with those there. This is one of my favorite parts of the day – as I have the opportunity to talk with those I have met and others I have not. The elevator is where I first met my resident mentors (Tina and Marge) as well as many others.

During the day, I usually move from one place to another – either at school, work, or my internship. However, when I come back to OLWT I like to do my homework, exercise, or be with all of you! I talk to those in the lobby, in the hallway, or in The Crossings! I then make plans with those I have talked to, so that I can further get to know them. Simply sitting in the lobby has allowed me to make so many friends!

Finally, I like to end my day with talking with my neighbors or relaxing in my room. With Halloween and Thanksgiving coming up, I have loved decorating and participating in fall activities! For example, I have carved pumpkins, hung a (not so scary) skeleton banner across my door, sticky Halloween objects on my windows, apple picking, and of course pumpkin candles everywhere! I have also loved going to the OSU football games! For my next Porch Stories, I am going to ask all of you what some of your favorite Fall activities are!

Hello Ohio Living Westminster-Thurber!

I hope everyone is enjoying the new Fall season (even though it’s been in the 80’s for most of those days), and learning a lot in the OWLS classes. It is so wonderful to have that opportunity to learn from others in the community. I am looking forward to attending the Public Health class.

Speaking of new activities, the first Porch Stories session was last Monday and it went wonderfully! I simply provided three different questions throughout the hour and the rest was an organic conversation. It was so interesting to learn of people’s lives and hear their unique stories. I never would have known some of the information I learned if I hadn’t asked! I thank you to those seven residents who attended the first session, you hold a special place in my heart now!

Thanks to Nancy Blake, she gave me a plethora of books that provided conversation starters, questions to ask groups, Holiday stories, and many more. The three questions I asked were from one of these books. They included, “What is your favorite childhood memory?”, “What is the kindest thing a stranger has ever done for you?”, and “What famous person’s life story do you think every adult show know about?”. These questions will change each week in order to bring new perspectives and fostering conversations between new and old residents!

Don’t forget to sign up for more Porch Stories! The sign up sheet is in Thurber Tower. You can come as often as you would like.

As I have been becoming acquainted with the OLWT campus, there are places that have been particularly inviting to me, especially those ones involving food. How awesome to have such a variety of places where one can sit down and relax. Throughout the year, I will sometimes focus my posts on my favorite places around OLWT. This week, I am going to be focusing on the Art Studio and the Thurber Tower rooftop!

The art studio was one of the first places I was shown when discussions began about my living here. I immediately fell in love. It is place of such variety, with a plethora of events hosted there regularly. It is incredible to see the level of involvement by so many of you. I also adore the different knitted items, especially the hats, which I hope to learn the know-how before my time here ends. The art studio is also where my formal activity “Porch Stories” will be hosted beginning October 1^st at 10:00 am! Only qualification is listening to others! Join me to chat about unique stories in our lives and hearing from your friends and neighbors. This will be held weekly at the same day and time every week. More information to come in the Tower Post this Sunday.

My absolute favorite place on campus, however, is the rooftop of Thurber Tower. I have been spending many nights up there, soaking in the beautiful view with a book and a delicious glass of wine. It allows me to be at peace at a time in my life when peace rarely comes and I feel so spoiled that a view that beautiful is so accessible! I can also gaze upon the oasis of gardens and baffle at the number of “green thumbs” we have here! I have been trying to take mental notes of these gardens, as every plant I own seems to die no matter what I do.

Check out my future posts for other favorite places around OLWT!

It has now been one month since I made the transition to moving to Westminster-Thurber. What a whirl wind it has been! It’s been filled with wonderful conversations, a drumming circle, attending the current events group (where I am now graciously given a copy of the New York Times each day), and much more! I often chuckle to myself, for many of you are busier than I am! I admire that greatly and hope to be as engaged in the community one day like you.Speaking of community engagements, I have been contemplating how to further involve myself here at Wesminster-Thurber. One of my requirements to live here is to engage “formally” with the community. So, this is where I want to hear from you: Do you see a need in the community that is not being filled? For example, is there an activity I could host once a week to engage a greater range in the community? I was talking to one of my resident mentors (the fabulous Tina Butler) who suggested a weekly group known as “Porch Stories” in which I would provide a topic and each person in the group would tell a story of their own based on that topic!

This is your home and it’s important to me that I provide you all with something that is important to you! I would love to hear your ideas or suggestions. Slip a note under my door, apartment # 912, and I will make sure your voice is heard! Have a wonderful weekend!

It’s nearing the end of summer which means that for many college students, school is just around the corner. With this beginning often brings new transitions and experiences, including, for some people, moving to a new apartment. You could say that those qualities apply to my situation, moving into a studio apartment in a retirement community…right? At least that’s how I try to normalize it in my head. However, when a 21-year-old college student moves into such a place, what is so normal about that? The answer is, it’s not, but the abnormality of it introduces an opportunity to experience both the vulnerability and beauty of aging and to encounter some of the most wonderful people. That has been my experience here at Ohio-Living Westminster-Thurber so far.  I have been welcomed with open arms into a community that is genuine, caring, and passionate. Never have I had the opportunity to learn from elders who are so wise and filled with a passion for life. Thank you to all of you here, especially those who have written me notes and invited me to community events. Take, for example, a statement from a letter I received on my second night here (pictured above).

It is so refreshing to be in an environment that includes rather than excludes and being able to apply these very same principles at my internship placement, Age-Friendly Columbus and Franklin County. It is there that I can utilize the individual interactions that I have with each of you to working towards making Columbus an age-friendly city. I am thrilled to be living with you all and am looking forward to learning about your lives and passions.