It has been almost a year since our chapter launch.  Many thanks to the individuals and businesses that helped us get to this point.  It has been our challenge finding our place amongst the many related service groups in the region but think we have found our niche.  Some of the things we have tried, in getting to this place are exploring some of the more traditional roles such as advocacy, housing, wellness & professional development into retirement.

We have had events and met with community officials through our process of exploration.  We have ultimately come to a point which is not too far from what CARP actually stood for when it originated back in the 1970’s.  In our “New Vision of Aging” and what we see as being needed in the region is “A New face of Retirement”.

This “New Face of Retirement” resembles what was formally known as semi-retirement.  Over the next year, we plan to address the specifics required to take us through a long, productive, satisfying life of retirement.  It is a process of preparation that begins in ones Forties (or earlier) and requires much more than attention to Finances.

Some of its components include a planned healthy financial future with continued earning power for many years to come.  It requires our attention to the 4 components of wellness that will propel us into a healthy future and will address the impediments of addiction.  It will also address our changing “cognitive & physical” abilities as we get older in an aging population.

Through this, we will have done our part to lessen the growing burden on the already over-taxed health care and pension fund systems.  We hope that no matter your age.. will join us in this pro-active, solution seeking approach, because we will all be dependent on it some day.  This is what a “new Vision of Aging” means in our Chapter 6, Northern Interior region!

Sincerely;

Rita Wiebe, Chapter 6, Chairperson