Imagine an event that brings together community members, provides dynamic content for them, and then asks their input on how to make Austin a more Age-Friendly City, all while celebrating Older Americans Month. That’s the premise behind Age My Way.
Age My Way
A one day hybrid event from AustinUP
When and where
Thursday, May 19, 2022 | 9 AM – 4 PM
Austin Board of REALTORS® Headquarters
4800 Spicewood Springs Rd, Austin, TX 78759
What we know
Central Texas continues to attract older adults in increasing numbers, yet it is a struggle for policy priorities, funding, and opportunities for older adults to keep up with the demand. Recognizing that older adults are an invaluable community resource, Central Texas should be a place that supports each of us at every age.
What we want to learn
With a focus on community progress through the Age-Friendly Austin plan, combined with a desire to gain valuable feedback from our older community members, AustinUP is asking for your participation as we plan this important event. Our event audience will include older adults and representatives from private and nonprofit sectors. The event will open with a dynamic speaker addressing the topic of ageism and ways to combat it while we progress toward making Austin an Age-Friendly City. Attendees will also hear from knowledgeable speakers in breakout sessions designed to disseminate information on critical topics while focusing on obtaining feedback from the participants. Key topics will be:
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- Home Sweet Home: Should I stay or should I go?
- Getting Down to Business: What makes me a repeat customer?
- Technology Should Be Fun: Making tech work for you.
Schedule of Events
9:00 AM — Doors Open | Breakfast | Visit Sponsor Tables
9:30 AM — Opening Remarks | Introductions | Featured Speaker Beth Broderick
10:30 AM — Breaktime | Visit Sponsor Tables
11:00 AM — Breakout Session #1
12:15 PM — Lunch | Presentation of Age-Friendly Austin Plan
12:45 PM — Breakout Session #2
2:15 PM — Breakout Session #3
We need your support
Our sponsors make this event possible. A variety of sponsorship opportunities are available, and your participation includes valuable marketing benefits for your business or organization. Join our generous supporters in bringing Age My Way to the Austin community.
Golden Years Sponsors
AARP
The Cummings Home Team
Words of Wisdom Sponsors
Brush Country Nursing and Rehabilitation
Lakeline Oaks
Longleaf Bee Cave
Oasis Senior Advisors
Sodalis Senior Living Austin
Westminster
A Fall 2022 webinar series
sharing input and ideas
from AustinUP’s Age My Way Event
We are planning a series of three webinar events this fall to disseminate the information we learned through our May 2022 Age My Way event.
9/8/2022, 2-3:30 PM: Home Sweet Home: Should I stay or should I go? | Sponsored by Buckner Villas
10/6/2022, 2-3:30 PM: Technology Should Be Fun: Making tech work for you. | Sponsored by Oasis Senior Advisors
11/3/2022, 2-3:30 PM: Getting Down to Business: What makes me a repeat customer?
Visit our Events page for webinar registration links.
Please consider supporting this effort as a webinar sponsor!
Beth Broderick, Featured Speaker
Beth Broderick is an actress, writer, and humanitarian. She has enjoyed a successful career spanning film, television, and theater. Beth made her motion picture debut in Stealing Home, and has appeared in dozens of big screen films and television movies. Numerous television series starring roles included Sabrina the Teen-age Witch, and she has performed onstage right here at Zach Theatre as well as many venues across the United States.
A tireless humanitarian, Beth is the founder of MOMENTUM, one of the country’s first organizations to support individuals with AIDS, and has worked with The Good Shepherd Home in Los Angeles for over 30 years. Beth is also an essayist. She has written for Greenroom, NOHO News, and was a longtime featured writer for the Huffington Post.
Beth has her own column on Substack entitled Letters from a Plus-Aged Person – a newsletter about Wit and Wisdom from a Woman of a Certain Age, which reaches thousands of readers every week. We are looking forward to hearing Beth bring her humor and insight to Age My Way as our featured speaker.
Our Age My Way Moderators
Kim Barnes and her spouse, Mike, are adult children who are caring for their parents as they get older. Over the last few years, they’ve helped their parents through pacemakers, COVID pneumonia, Alzheimer’s, memory loss, financial scams, surgeries, selling houses, and making the tough moves into retirement communities.
Kim is a former Austin TV news anchor who is using her reporting skills and passion for caregiving to find important information, share valuable resources, and interview experts who can shed light on tough topics for Parenting Aging Parents. It’s a website and community they founded that brings caregivers together to educate and support them, as well as provide a safe space to ask questions.
Besides caring for their parents, Kim and Mike love spending time with their children, a 24-year-old son who graduated from Texas A&M and a 21-year-old daughter who recently graduated from The University of Texas.
Ani Colt moved to Austin ten years ago and was one of the first residents in Wildflower Terrace in Mueller. Wildflower Terrace is a 55+ “Active Adults” building with 85% of the apartments in the affordable program/Shortly after she arrived, Ani started advocating for her new friends and neighbors and started a Mueller Aging & Neighborhood group. She now lives in a single family home with her new husband, Preston “Ty” Tyree. Together they started the Wisdom Crew in Mueller. Currently she and a small circle of community leaders are looking at the issue that rents for Wildflower Terrace and other 55+ affordable apartment buildings are going up faster than the fixed incomes of the residents.
Ani’s professional career included 20 years as a focus group moderator and consultant to Fortune 100 consumer package goods companies when she lived as a single mother of two in suburban New York City.
Bruce Kravitz, after receiving a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Oklahoma, spent 18 years in the high tech industry in a variety of technical, marketing, and business management positions. In the year 2000, Bruce gladly fled the high tech industry to follow his life-long passion for helping others. From 2009 until 2014, Bruce was employed at AGE of Central Texas where he helped hundreds of seniors and their family members successfully navigate the many challenges of aging and caregiving by providing customized advice. He also created the CaregiverU educational program which provides free caregiving classes throughout the Central Texas area. In 2010, Bruce became a credentialed mediator in the state of Texas so he could better assist families with resolving their conflicts.
In 2015, Bruce founded ElderPeace Partners, a private, professional mediation firm that specializes in resolving disputes related to the care, well-being, and property of seniors and their families residing in the Central Texas area. In addition to managing his growing elder mediation business, Bruce also serves as volunteer mediator for three other non-profit dispute resolution agencies in the Central Texas area.