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Engage with Age

Engage With Age: A Partnership between Southminster, UNC Charlotte and Renaissance West Community Initiative to promote Successful Aging, 2018-2020

Introduction

Collective Impact initiatives are long-term commitments by community members and collaborative organizations from different sectors to agree to a common agenda to propose solutions to ongoing challenges and encourage communities to support successful development and quality of life for people of all ages.

The Renaissance West Community Initiative (RWCI) established in 2012 in Charlotte, created the Renaissance village to address public housing using a holistic community redevelopment approach, and focusing on multiple critical factors, including mixed-income housing, educational opportunities, youth and adult development programs, health and wellness services and commercial investment (www.rwci.org). Currently the Renaissance consists of 334 units of mixed-income housing, including 132 senior housing apartments, the STEAM Academy (RWSA) and the Howard Levine Child Development Center (HLCDC) that opened this year in 2018.

The Gerontology Program at UNC Charlotte would like to contribute to the Renaissance West Community Initiative (RWCI) with a two-year program to promote Successful Development across the Lifespan at the village. The program “Engage with Age” (EWA) will provide engaging activities for adults in the village to foster intergenerational interactions, increase socialization, improve health and wellness literacy and provide information about community services and resources. These goals are in synchrony with the mission of the RWCI as to “promote a collaborative community centered on quality housing, education, health, wellness and opportunity.”

Specific Programing goals are

Provide engaging programs for senior residents living at Renaissance to increase socialization, education, as well as health and wellness opportunities.
Connect all ages living in at the Renaissance West Community Initiative village.
Provide aging resources and serve as liaison to connect residents to various local services to enhance quality of life.